Reviewer: 'Emoji' movie elicits frowny face

Editor's note: Robert Setlock is a movie reviewer who runs the YouTube channel Organized Chaos.The Emoji Movie• Setlock review: zero out of five stars• Rated: PG• Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes• In theaters nationwideI should probably write more of a review for "The Emoji Movie" — but that would force me to put more effort into the column than the screenplay writers did for this film.I'm concerned that by calling this a garbage fire, I'll be doing an injustice to garbage fires. This movie sounded like an inane idea when announced, looked terrible in the trailers — but, nonetheless, surprised me by being worse than I expected.If you can envision a place where creativity goes to die this is it. It represents all the worst elements of Sony as a studio and of Hollywood in general.Remember "Inside Out" from a couple of years ago? Did you ever imagine what it would be like if that movie replaced all its imagination with product placement? That's "The Emoji Movie" in a nutshell: "Inside Out" sans soul.This image released by Sony Pictures shows Gene, voiced by T.J. Miller, center, in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation's "The Emoji Movie."Our main character, Gene (T.J. Miller), is the son of two "meh" emojis (Steven Wright and Jennifer Coolidge) and he, too, is meant to be a "meh."Sadly, if this movie were "meh," it would be a vast improvement. He's not a very good "meh" and expresses pretty much every emotion except "meh."Because of this, the smiley in charge decides he should be deleted. To escape, he runs off into other phone apps.Remember all the interesting locations the character went through in "Inside Out"? Well here each of those locations is nothing more than a product placement.Gene and Hi-5 (James Corden) get caught up in the "adventure", go to places such as Let's Dance, Candy Crush, Spotify, YouTube, all in an attempt to get to the cloud Dropbox.These side quests exist solely to sell products. Sony outpaces other studios in its use of product placement and cross promotion. Thus, "The Emoji Movie" serves as a vehicle for Sony products and nothing more. Honestly, with all the advertisers featured in this movie, it probably paid for itself before one film cell existed.I would say the story is bland and predictable, but, in truth, it's borderline nonexistent. I wouldn't say it's predictable because that would require an interest in the story's future events when I had none.Literally, I could find nothing praiseworthy about this movie. Even Patrick Stewart as the "Poop emoji" never had a chance. What was supposed to pass as humor fell flat. Even when journeying to the separate app, the film's lack of creativity overwhelms everything else.To date, "The Emoji Movie" is the front runner for worst movie of the year.Setlock, Robert