With the insanely high levels of hatred for The Emoji Movie, the critic decides to finally watch the stinker. Can he see why everyone hates it so much?
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Critic constantly calls Gene "Meh", after the emoji he's supposed to be, and does it 10 more times in the review alone. Even when he edits in two clips where characters call him Gene out loud. Whether or not Critic actually didn't learn his real name, or if he's just maliciously naming him something else and he's just that good at sarcasm, is up for interpretation.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Critic admits to getting a chuckle at emoticons being the elderly, as they were replaced long ago.
- Alternative Character Interpretation: The Critic believes that maybe Jailbreak wants to go to the cloud because she just doesn't like the idea of emojis.
- Critical Backlash: The Critic doesn't feel that it lives up to the massive amounts of hate, concluding that it is just run-of-the-mill-bad with a few good aspects. He clearly understands why it received such a massive backlash, though.
- Dance Party Ending: Critic is tired of this cliché popping up in animated films such as this, Shrek 2, Hotel Transylvania 2, and Smurfs: The Lost Village.
- Designated Hero: Instead of calling out Gene for leaving various characters to be deleted, he feels frustrated at the low death count.
- Easily Impressed: Alex and Addie get together because the phone sent an Emoji, which he sees as unemotional and lazy.
- Flat Character: He takes issue with Alex having virtually no character.
- Fridge Logic: The Critic applies this to the concept behind Textopolis:Critic: In fact, if phones have souls living in them, does that mean that the machines they use also have souls living in them? (focusing on the toaster emoji character) Do the gears inside that toaster also have little toasters inside a town called Toastopolis? Is anyone who made this realizing how stupid this all was yet?
- Indecisive Parody: He takes issue with the film mocking the idiocy of the current generation while adding to the problem by pandering to them. This even ruins the only clever moments.The Nostalgia Critic: It's like slipping in "fascism is bad" in Triumph of the Will.
- It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Unlike most previous reviews of current entertainment, the heavily-requested Emoji Movie doesn't have any sort of nostalgic tie-in, but the Critic decides to review it anyway, since he sees it "becoming a nostalgic landmark of heinousness". He ends up regretting this later on, when he made an obligatory review of The Boss Baby.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Special mention goes to the awful "monkey business" joke. This ruins one of the few good scenes.
- Laugh Track: The Critic, confused over a scene between Gene's parents, cues the audience to either laugh or "aww" until finally giving up and making them boo.
- Looping Lines: After the climax, Hi-5 doesn't even match his voice to his lip movements.
- My Eyes Are Up Here: It doesn't make sense that a clock would complain about this.
- Plot Hole:
- Why didn't Hi-5 contact Jailbreak earlier to get himself reprogrammed?
- Why did Jailbreak feel so restricted by society when there were originally a variety of female Emojis on Alex's phone?
- Product Placement: Wanted it to be better worked into the story.
- Running Gag: Whenever a major character played by a respectable actor is introduced, the Critic complains, "Dammit, [actor], why haven't you fired your agent?" Then he shows that the action is billed that on their IMDb page.
- The Scrappy: The only character that annoyed him seemed to be Hi-5.
- Sequel Hook: This ends on one for the Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins review.Scooby's Voice: Scooby-Dooby-Doo!
Critic: ...There's a third one? - Shout-Out:
- A clip of Rev. Lovejoy reacting to Kirk and Luanne's argument in The Simpsons episode "A Milhouse Divided" is shown in reaction to Poop's line, "I'm always on duty. ...What?"
- When the Critic points out that Smiler is a ripoff of Inside Out's Joy:
- When Gene and Hi-5 enter the world of the piracy app, a clip of Ray Arnold saying, "It could've been worse, John -- a lot worse" is shown.
- The Critic calls the internet trolls "drunken VeggieTales".
- The Critic acts out finding a seemingly innocuous YouTube Kids video featuring Elsa, The Joker, and Spider-Man.
- The Critic thinks that Jailbreak is actually a Minion playing dress-up, while showing a picture of one dressed like Princess Peach.
- When the Critic argues that "princess" is not a personality, he contrasts Snow White (a Princess Classic) with Xena: Warrior Princess.
- So My Kids Can Watch: Parodied. "I did this role for my grandkids who are not getting Christmas presents this year."
- Stalker with a Crush: He sees Alex using a girl's name as a password more creepy than cute.Critic: Hey, is it "Creepy-Ass O'Clock" already? (checks his phone — it is.)
- Subverted Catchphrase: The Critic forgoes his usual opening line, preferring to text some mean-spirited emojis directed at his copy of the movie instead. He closes the review by saying, "I'm the Nostalgia Critic, and I deserve to be challenged by a more creatively bad movie!"
- Take That!: The Critic says that one of the emojis missing from the Loser Lounge is "Ghostbusters Reboot Emoji".
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Critic finds a grand total of two legitimately clever lines ("None of these people know [Alex], but they like him," and "What good is it to be number one if there aren't any other numbers?") that would be put to better use if the film actually bothered to explore these ideas. He also thought that the main characters could have explored his online history to learn about Alex.
- Would Rather Suffer: The Critic declares that he'd rather do the Macarena with the Mario than the Emoji Pop... while on fire.
Words aren't cool.
