Despite the best efforts of Sir Patrick Stewart—an Emmy, Olivier, and Screen Actors Guild award-winning legend whose 50-year career earned him a British knighthood for “services to drama” by Queen Elizabeth II, and whose diverse roles have taken him to space, the royal castle Elsinore, and now to your toilet—The Emoji Movie is getting 💩 reviews.
As of press time, The Emoji Movie—an animated film comprised of famous actors lending their voices to the digital icons—sports a 3% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 29 reviews. The film premieres today.
Starring comedian T.J. Miller as an emoji capable of showing more than one facial expression (and thus considered a social outcast), The Emoji Movie features a respectable ensemble cast that includes James Corden (✋), Maya Rudolph (😃), and, of course Sir Patrick Stewart as the best emoji of them all: poop (💩).
“The whole thing remains nakedly idiotic,” writes New York Times critic Glenn Kenny. “It is one of the darkest, most dismaying films I have ever seen,” declares Emily Yoshida of Vulture.
Inspired in part by Toy Story, The Emoji Movie was at the center of an intense bidding war ultimately won by Sony Pictures Animation. It’s directed by Tony Leondis, who previously helmed sequels to the animated films Lilo & Stitch and Kung Fu Panda. The property was initially envisioned as a franchise, but that was before the 💩 reviews came out.
There is hope on the horizon, however. Apple announced a variety of new emojis last week, including “vomit,” “zombie,” and “exploding head.” Can anyone say sequel?