THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED kids animation blockbuster of the summer is set to be The Emoji Movie – released today in the States and in Ireland next Friday.

You can guess the premise:

Given today is the big release date across the Atlantic, most of the big reviewers’ opinions have dropped overnight – and some haven’t been too kind. Look at Vulture’s headline

Vulture Vulture

Emily Yoshida’s review doesn’t hold back:

In the mock tradition of countless superior Pixar films before it, it’s attempting to sell a sense of childlike wonder and fascination with an ordinary, everyday object: your smartphone. And in doing so, it is one of the darkest, most dismaying films I have ever seen, much less one ostensibly made for children.

It was brutal in its honesty

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And the final paragraph sums it all up

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The next review that got attention for its own brand of excoriating critique was this one published in The Guardian today.

The Guardian The Guardian

Its opening paragraph goes in:

Children should not be allowed to watch The Emoji Movie. Their impressionable brains simply aren’t set up to sift through the thick haze of corporate subterfuge clouding every scene of this sponsored-content post masquerading as a feature film. Adults know enough to snort derisively when, say, an anthropomorphic high-five drops a reference to popular smartphone game Just Dance Now (available for purchase in the App Store, kids!), but young children especially are more innocent and more vulnerable.

Of all the reviews today, this might be the most harsh

Vox agreed. The theme that developed in these reviews was that The Emoji Movie went above and beyond what was reasonable in terms of product placement – especially in a film aimed at kids

Vox Vox

Giving it less than one star, Vox goes into detail about the rampant commercialisation:

It’s amazing to witness the baldly commercial attempt to shove as many recognizable apps as possible into The Emoji Movie’s sad excuse for a plot: Crackle (owned by Sony), WeChat (hugely popular in China, where this movie is aiming to make a killing), Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Dropbox all make appearances, with Dropbox in particular representing a kind of heaven that some of the emojis are trying to reach.

It should be noted that The Emoji Movie is hardly aimed at these reviewer’s age bracket, but so many film experts across major US publications were unimpressed

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The list goes on and on

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With the final nail in the first impression coffin being delivered by Rotten Tomatoes last night

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*sad face emoji*

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