The film is widely known for its overwhelmingly negative critical reception, often cited for its heavy use of product placement and derivative plot.

: Determined to be "normal," Gene teams up with Hi-5 (James Corden) and a hacker named Jailbreak (Anna Faris) to find the "Cloud" and reprogram his code.

: Smiler (Maya Rudolph), the leader of Textopolis, views Gene as a malfunction that must be deleted to protect the phone's functionality.

: Outside the phone, the user—a teenager named Alex —struggles to text his crush, which inadvertently puts the emoji world at risk of a factory reset. Critical Reception