The Emoji Movie Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

2. It Throws Away Most Of Its Satirical Potential

One of the most frustrating things about this film is that it definitely had the potential to be a satire on the use of emojis in popular culture, and there are definitely hints of that throughout, though they're largely suppressed below the aforementioned low-effort jokes and Gene's lazy, sentimental personal drama.

Characters in the film often remark the baffling pervasiveness of emojis in society and refer to them in ironic, tongue-in-cheek fashion, but these comments come and go without any additional context, and so they're likely to be lost on the majority of audiences, especially as they seem so inconsistent with the film's generally broader, straight-laced tone.

Though the film was an easy target to poke fun at pre-release, it definitely could've been a pleasant surprise had it actually examined the function of emojis in a comical way, but it instead took a route far less challenging.