The Emoji Movie (2017)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The review condemns the film as soulless, unfunny and monumentally idiotic, stuffed with product placement and undermined by a lazy script and annoying characters.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.