--- title: "The Emoji Movie" year: 2017 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-emoji-movie" fi1m_score: 27 critics_score: 22 critics_reviews: 21 published: "2026-09-16T15:23:24.552067+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T15:23:24.764686+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Emoji Movie (2017) Directed by Tony Leondis · 1h 26m · MPA PG · Animation, Family, Comedy **Fi1m score: 27** · Critics 22 from 21 reviews *In a sentence:* Eighty-six minutes inside a smartphone made us nostalgic for a landline > Tony Leondis turns a workable smartphone premise into a dull trip through familiar apps. Bright colours and occasional slapstick cannot rescue the thin characters, tired lessons or persistent sense of being advertised at. ## Synopsis Gene (T.J. Miller) is a meh emoji living inside a smartphone, where faces and symbols have voices and personalities. He struggles to fit in, and his search for acceptance takes him through the phone’s apps. His fellow inhabitants include Hi-5 (James Corden), Jailbreak (Anna Faris) and Smiler (Maya Rudolph). Familiar software supplies the locations and obstacles as the action moves around inside the device. Gene wants to find a place for himself among the other emojis, whose identities are tied to the emotions and gestures they represent. ## Review The film has a workable idea for a family comedy: give the little symbols in a phone lives of their own. There is room there for jokes about how much people try to say with a face and how often it goes wrong. Tony Leondis directs an 86-minute film that spends too much of that opportunity travelling between apps, with a familiar lesson about self-acceptance attached. It is dull, heavily branded and short of jokes, though the bright animation supplies occasional scraps of pleasure. The screenplay, by Tony Leondis, Eric Siegel and Mike White, asks us to care about Gene’s difficulty fitting in. That is a serviceable starting point, particularly for a character whose purpose is to express a feeling. But the film rarely finds anything peculiar to emojis in its self-acceptance story; almost any talking object could deliver these lessons. The rules inside the phone are muddled, and the dialogue spends too much energy making familiar points. Gene needs a personality worth following through all those apps. T.J. Miller voices Gene, with James Corden as Hi-5 and Anna Faris as Jailbreak, but none gets enough help from the writing. Their characters are thinly drawn, and the performers cannot make the dialogue feel less preassembled. Maya Rudolph voices Smiler, while Patrick Stewart supplies Poop, a casting decision that seems to expect the credit itself to get a laugh. A capable voice cast has been given too few opportunities to be funny. Carlos Zaragoza’s production design makes the inside of the smartphone a bright, busy place, and the changes of scenery have some appeal. For brief stretches, the simple pleasure of animated bodies in motion is enough. The slapstick works better than the conversations, partly because it does not have to stop and announce a lesson. The colours help keep the journey watchable, although the places themselves seldom reward a longer look. William J. Caparella’s editing keeps the app-hopping moving, but the succession of destinations grows wearing. There is little time to enjoy a situation before the film has another piece of software to visit, and movement alone cannot give the jokes better timing. Patrick Doyle’s music cannot make the adventure involving when the writing has done so little to make its characters matter. The running time is modest, yet the journey feels padded by stops that add little beyond a change of surroundings. We grew bored with the app tour, then irritated by how much attention Spotify and Dropbox received while the characters remained so thin. Recognisable software is a reasonable thing to find inside a smartphone, and brand names need not prevent a scene from being funny. Here, though, recognition is repeatedly offered as entertainment in itself. Candy Crush is familiar; its appearance still needs a worthwhile joke. The product placement becomes more conspicuous because there is so little else to hold our attention. An animated family comedy does not need an elaborate plot, but it does need some curiosity about the creatures or objects it has brought to life. This one seems satisfied that talking emojis are enough, and most critics are right to find that thin. There are flashes of competent slapstick and enough colour to occupy a small child for a while. We would still choose something that gives the child a better joke and the accompanying adult a reason to stay. *Fi1m score 27, published 16 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (21) - **Radio Times**, Dave Aldridge (2/5): The critic says the film isn't quite as awful as its negative publicity suggests, though its shabby plot and unexceptional design will probably annoy adults more than the target young audience. Blatant product plugs for apps like Candy Crush are noted. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-xdx6fa/the-emoji-movie/) - **The AV Club**, Vadim Rizov (D): The critic describes it as a severely debased Inside Out set inside a smartphone, using app-hopping as an excuse for heavy product placement and corporate synergy. It singles out the clichéd self-acceptance plot and pervasive cynicism for complaint. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-emoji-movie-is-inside-out-crossed-with-a-sony-comme-1798191832) - **Los Angeles Times**, Katie Walsh (30/100, inferred): The movie is exactly what one expects and can be summed up as 'meh,' a perfect reflection of its main character with no surprises or greatness. It is not terrible but offers little reason to choose it over reading a book or talking to another person. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-emoji-movie-review-20170727-story.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, THR Staff (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a very dumb project that fails to match the cleverness of The Lego Movie, offering fast colorful visuals for kids but nearly nothing for parents. It singles out the incoherent plot, product placement, and lame dialogue for complaint while noting some effective slapstick adventure and eye candy. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/emoji-movie-1024758/) - **The Independent** (★★☆☆☆): The critic finds it lacklustre and cookie-cutter compared to better animated films, with a premise that feels cumbersome and irritating in practice despite the bright colours and noise. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/film-reviews-roundup-the-emoji-movie-england-is-mine-maudie-williams-a7872646.html) - **Vulture**, Emily Yoshida (30/100, inferred): The critic calls it one of the darkest and most dismaying films ostensibly made for children, cynically selling smartphone wonder through branding and product placement. It singles out the rubber-faced emoji redesign and the bland self-empowerment message drowned in corporate obligations for complaint. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2017/07/the-emoji-movie-will-send-you-into-a-spiral-emoji-of-despair.html) - **Empire**, Helen O'Hara (20/100, inferred): The critic calls out the film's lack of internal logic, fundamental miscasting and tiresome over-familiarity, noting it wastes a talented cast and fails to land for its intended audience. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/emoji-movie-review/) - **Little White Lies**, David Jenkins (1/1/1): The critic finds the film a hard-to-love, awful animated movie that fails to engage or deliver original storytelling and humour. One highlight is singled out in a disco dancing app scene with a memorable scream. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-emoji-movie) - **Screen Daily** (20/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a calamitous, mindless and disposable comedy that never finds the comedic potential in its smartphone premise and plays down to its audience with glib bromides and pandering references. It inadvertently highlights how difficult it is to match Pixar-style world-building. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-emoji-movie-review/5120358.article) - **The Telegraph**, Robbie Collin (1/5): The film is monstrously soulless and spiritually rancid, a horrifying exercise in product placement. It singles out the story's embrace of trademarked apps as the measure of its abysmal cynicism. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/emoji-movie-review-arent-enough-poops-world-express-bad/) - **Time Out**, Tomris Laffly (1/5): The critic calls the film vile kiddie trash that is stupid, offensive and dangerously dumbing down, waving the flag for the decay of attention spans. It is singled out as an insidious philosophy hazardous to impressionable minds with simplistic adventures and pandering references. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-emoji-movie) - **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (20/100, inferred): The film is a mostly witless 'Inside Out' knockoff that fails to bring the emoji concept to surprising life despite the novel setting inside a smartphone. Execution falls short, making the emojis say more before they open their mouths. [Read](https://variety.com/2017/film/reviews/the-emoji-movie-review-1202506835/) - **Evening Standard**, Matthew Norman (10/100, inferred): The review condemns the film as soulless, unfunny and monumentally idiotic, stuffed with product placement and undermined by a lazy script and annoying characters. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-emoji-movie-review-monumental-idiocy-a3682211.html) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (10/100, inferred): The film is a cynical corporate product-placement exercise masquerading as a children's movie. It singles out the intrusive brand plugs for apps like Spotify and Dropbox as draining any possible joy or imagination from the premise. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jul/28/the-emoji-movie-review-a-big-thumb-down) - **The New York Times**, Glenn Kenny (10/100, inferred): The critic finds the film nakedly idiotic and a self-own for Sony, with its pandering premise and execution failing to rise above its posters' promise despite a capable voice cast and writer. The 'believe in yourself' message is perversely undercut by the movie's very existence. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/movies/the-emoji-movie-review.html) - **The Times**, Ed Potton (0/5): The Emoji Movie is shallow, crass and the most hideous example of product placement in cinema history. It singles out the film's hatred of its own subject matter and brazen Inside Out rip-off as particularly execrable. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/history/article/film-review-the-emoji-movie-3mj93cppr) - **Den of Geek**, Don Kaye (2/5): The critic finds the world-building inside the phone appealing but the main characters and plot derivative and unengaging, with excessive product placement; it may entertain young children but parents will be bored. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-emoji-movie-review/) - **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (30/100, inferred): The film has a baffling plot and unadventurous animation; while the concept of emojis in a phone world might appeal to tech-savvy millennials, it exhausts comprehension for others and isn't as good as The Lego Movie. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/the-emoji-movie-2017-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) - **HeyUGuys**, Hannah Woodhead (1/5): The critic finds the film bad, a cynical money-grab lacking heart, charm, or any redeeming qualities, with poor writing and design despite big-name voice talent. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/the-emoji-movie-review/) - **NME**, Olly Richards (1/5): The review dismisses the film as a cynical cash-grab with no creative ambition, featuring a nonsensical story, unfunny adventure, and blatant product placement for apps. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/the-emoji-movie-film-review-2120169-2120169) - **The Wrap**, Alonso Duralde (10/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a soul-crushing disaster that lacks humor, wit, ideas, visual style, compelling performances or a point of view, making it a complete waste of time. The story is faulted for cobbling together familiar kid-movie tropes and shameless product placement while being shrill and stupid. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/the-emoji-movie-review/) ## Details - **Director:** Tony Leondis - **Director:** Tony Leondis - **Screenplay:** Tony Leondis, Eric Siegel, Mike White - **Story:** Tony Leondis, Eric Siegel - **Editor:** William J. Caparella - **Music:** Patrick Doyle - **Production design:** Carlos Zaragoza - **Producer:** Michelle Raimo Kouyate - **Cast:** T.J. Miller as Gene (voice); James Corden as Hi-5 (voice); Anna Faris as Jailbreak (voice); Maya Rudolph as Smiler (voice); Steven Wright as Mel Meh (voice); Jennifer Coolidge as Mary Meh (voice); Jake T. Austin as Alex (voice); Christina Aguilera as Akiko Glitter (voice) - **Runtime:** 1h 26m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 23 July 2017 - **Genres:** Animation, Family, Comedy - **Budget:** $50 million - **Box office:** $218 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd85FEdJfTw ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $7.99, uhd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie 2018: Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie (nominated) - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture 2017: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture (won) ## If you liked this - *Wreck-It Ralph* (2012): A digital playground with clear rules, sharper jokes and characters worth following - *Ernest & Celestine* (2012): A bear and a mouse make friendship matter without a sermon about acceptance - *A Town Called Panic* (2009): Talking toys cause trouble in a small community, with far better comic timing - *The Mitchells vs. the Machines* (2021): A family faces troublesome technology, with enough affection to support the frantic jokes - *The Brave Little Toaster* (1987): Household appliances acquire personalities through their behaviour, making an unlikely journey worth taking --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-emoji-movie