Welcome to the secret world inside your phone.

Emoji Movie
2017 | Color | 1 Hr 26 Min | Animation | PG | Columbia Pictures

Director: Tony Leondis

Writers: 

Tony Leondis 

Eric Siegel

Stars: 

T.J. Miller 

James Corden

Anna Faris

The Emoji Movie unlocks the never-before-seen secret world inside your smartphone. Hidden within the messaging app is Textopolis, a bustling city where all your favorite emojis live, hoping to be selected by the phone's user. In this world, each emoji has only one facial expression - except for Gene, an exuberant emoji who was born without a filter and is bursting with multiple expressions. Determined to become "normal" like the other emojis, Gene enlists the help of his handy best friend Hi-5 and the notorious code breaker emoji Jailbreak. Together, they embark on an epic "app-venture" through the apps on the phone, each its own wild and fun world, to find the Code that will fix Gene. But when a greater danger threatens the phone, the fate of all emojis depends on these three unlikely friends who must save their world before it's deleted forever.

Good golly miss molly why all the hate? Ok, sure I had no desire to pay well over 50 bucks to take my girls to see what seems like the most ridicules way to cash in on a trend! But who can blame them we have pillows, notebooks, and toys long before this movie came around. And of course, the kids eat this crap up right? Hell, they made a movie for those dang rubber bands a few years ago, and that movie was H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E! But this movie well it's not horrible by any means, no it is not great but it is better than Rotten Tomatoes whats to give it. Then again the reviewer was most likely 77 years old not 7.

Once you get past the whole Emojies are alive and well on your phone, the story sheds a very positive light on what those kids hiding behind their phones are going through. It's  not about how many likes your post gets or how many friends you have it's about the true friends around you and to be yourself! Sure maybe this 40-year-old got bored with the flick but my kids did not. In fact, my youngest (9) would have been happy to watch it again shortly after the credits rolled she really can't wait for the Blu-Ray to come out. And for all the little kids around us, they seemed to be having a great time. As for us adults hey we laughed a little sure it was at some of the poop jokes but they worked. The whole story worked!

The movie looks good just like you would expect from a video game on your phone. The look and feel are very polished using bright colors through out and dark tones to set the mood but not bring it to a scary place and upsetting the younger crowd. The cast was perfect for the job and fit the "Emoji" of their charters keeping you involved with the story. So look in the end if your kids are bugging you to see Emoji Movie do not let those credits keep you at home. The younger crowd will have fun and you will get to spend some time with them and maybe just maybe you will walk away understanding the world your kids live in just a little bit more.  

So yeah I did not hate it! 3 out of 5.