Tati Gabrielle | Through the Shattered Lens

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

With each passing year since they decided to purchase and/or create original content for their streaming service, Netflix has continued to pump out more and more content to varying degrees of quality and success. For every Stranger Things or House of Cards, there would be 10 or so mediocre to just awful content, yet these are still content that the hundreds of millions of Netflix subscribers will watch.

Even now, shows that have been cancelled by the traditional networks have found a second life on Netflix to continue the series, albeit in a more streamlined version. There are no 20-24 episode seasons on Netflix. They prefer their series to be binge-able 10-13 episodes per season.

This October 26, just in time for Halloween, Netflix subscribers (plus those who borrow their friend’s account to watch Netflix) will see a new reinterpretation of the Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Just like CW Network’s Riverdale, this new Sabrina series on Netflix will have a much more darker take on the character that fans of the 1990’s series grew watching would be used to.

Kiernan Shipka of Mad Men will headline the series as the title character and if this teaser trailer is of any indication the series will definitely delve into much darker territory than the previous Sabrina series that aired on ABC.

I know one thing, I have a feeling that Lisa Marie will eat up this series, if just because of the last shot of the teaser trailer.

The Emoji Movie is basically Inside Out, except instead of taking place inside of an awkward teen’s head, it takes place inside of an awkward teen’s phone. Instead of sharing a universal story about the pain of growing up, it shares a universal story about the pain of having too many lame apps on your phone. Instead of featuring a melancholy voice performance by Richard Kind as a forgotten toy, it features an annoying voice performance from James Corden as a forgotten emoji. Instead of being really wise, funny, and sad, the Emoji Movie is dumb, stupid, and idiotic. Otherwise, it’s just like Inside Out.

Gene (voiced by T.J. Miller) is a Meh Emoji. He lives in Textopolis. His job is to look like he’s always meh but instead, he’s always full of emotion and positivity. His boss, Smiler (Maya Rudolph), says that Gene must be a malfunction and therefore, he has to be deleted. Gene says, “No, I must discover who I actually am!” With the help of the forgotten hand emoji, Hi-5 (that would be James Corden), Gene flees from app to app. (It’s kinda like The Lego Movie but not funny, touching, or clever.) They track down a hacker named Jailbreak (Anna Faris) and, at one point, they’re all rescued by a blue bird that comes flying over from the Twitter app. They’re all chased by a bunch of bots and I have to admit that I liked the bots just because they were trying to destroy Gene and Hi-5. Anything that would have ended James Corden’s lameass Ricky Gervais imitation would have been fine with me.

Nobody (or, at the very least, nobody who writes for this site) is as enthusiastic a capitalist as I am but the naked commercialism of The Emoji Movie really tested my patience. Essentially, it’s just an 86-minute advertisement with a vapid “Be yourself!” message tacked on. (If The Emoji Movie was sincere in its message of individuality, it wouldn’t celebrate the idea of people communicating exclusively in emoji.) Early on, when Gene and Hi-5 escaped into Candy Crush, I rolled my eyes. Later on, when an awed Gene said, “This is Spotify?”, I nearly threw a shoe at the TV.

(I did enjoy the scene where the Just Dance app got deleted, just because the dancer — who was voiced by Christina Aguilera — let out a terrifying scream as the app collapsed around her. I’ve always imagined that’s what happens whenever I delete anything.)

Usually, I try to force myself to come up with at least 500 words for every review that I write but the really does seem to be more effort than this movie deserves. (I was actually tempted to write this review exclusive in emoji but then I realized I was just be playing the movie’s game.) I will say this: children will like The Emoji Movie because children are stupid. Ask them again in five years and this will be their response: