Tj Miller

T.J. Miller Identified With Meh In The Emoji Movie

By Rich Cline in Movies / TV / Theatre on 10 August 2017

In the animated adventure comedy The Emoji Movie, T.J. Miller costars as Meh with Jennifer Coolidge as his mum, Maya Rudolph as Smiler and Patrick Stewart as Poop.

A busy comedic actor known for his rude characters in television (Silicon Valley) and movies (Deadpool), Miller is bemused by the fact that he's become a star voicing animated characters. "I never anticipated this," he laughs. "I'm a clown and an improviser from Chicago. And I never realised that I would have to learn to be funny in the G-rated space! Once you understand the confines of what you are allowed to do, it makes you more inventive."

TJ Miller voices Meh in The Emoji Movie

When he was pitched the idea of a movie about emojis, he didn't see the point. "My reaction really was, 'Huh?'" he says, but he was also intrigued by the idea of being in something so original. "Not that we don't need Hotel Transylvania 2, because kids that loved Hotel Transylvania 1 would love to see Hotel Transylvania 2. So I like doing stuff that's different from what's out there. Otherwise you'd see me in bachelor party comedies or weddings-gone-awry comedies, and I just think there's enough of those."

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The Emoji Movie Review

Weak

There's no reason why this animated comedy adventure needed to be this pointless. Solidly entertaining movies have been made using far less as source material (see The Lego Movie). But while there are some hilarious verbal and visual gags peppered throughout this movie, it all hinges on a script that's painfully obvious and animation that simply isn't inventive enough to hold the attention without a decent story and stronger characters.

It's set in Textopolis, an app inside the smartphone of the teen Alex (Jake T. Austin). The central character is Gene (T.J. Miller), who has far too many expressions for a meh emoji. His parents (Jennifer Coolidge and Steven Wright) worry that he has some sort of defect. Threatened by the cruel senior emoji Smiler (Maya Rudolph), Gene and his pal Hi-5 (James Cordon) sneak out of the app in search of the hacker Jailbreak (Anna Faris), who can help reprogramme him if they can make it to the cloud. But Smiler sends a team of killer bots in hot pursuit.

Yes, the plot is cursory at best, and essentially exists only so the film can namecheck carefully placed apps in a series of sponsored, rather pointless extended set pieces. This leaves the movie feeling like a low-rent variation on Wreck-It Ralph, although only a few of these sequences have any visual interest. The Candy Crush world is at least a colourful alternative to the dull digital look of most of most of the movie. And the lack of imagination shows in the depiction of music streaming as a stream and a firewall as a wall of fire. There's also a strange rush to violence in almost every sequence, as the bots continually try to delete our heroes.

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Emoji Movie Trailer

We use Emojis in text messages and social media everyday, but have you ever thought about what these images get up to when you put away your iPhone? When a high school boy goes to send his crush a 'Meh' emoji, it turns into something quite different. To the disappointment of his parents, Gene has never been quite as apathetic as he's expected to be, so when he messes up his moment it causes quite the problem for everyone else. Now the boy thinks his phone is broken, and he's on the way to get it re-set. That's not looking good for the emojis who find themselves desperately trying to back-up their world in the Cloud before their whole world gets wiped out. Meanwhile, Gene is about to learn that having more than one expression may not be such a bad thing after all.

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Office Christmas Party Looks Set For Modest Income At Box Office Opening Weekend

By John Tindale in Movies / TV / Theatre on 09 December 2016

Jason Bateman Paramount Pictures Dreamworks TJ Miller Olivia Munn Jillian Bell Courtney Vance Kate McKinnon Randall Park

The big budget comedy is looking to reach number one in the box office

'Office Christmas Party', starring Jason Bateman and Jennifer Anniston, has made a modest $950,000 in its preview showings on Thursday night at 2429 North American locations. Jennifer Aniston at the Office Christmas Premiere in California

Jennifer Aniston at the Office Christmas Party premiere in California

The Josh Gordon-directed film is expected to make between $13 and $15 million across 3210 sites for 'Paramount'. The 15 rated comedy could potentially challenge the Dwayne Johnson-starring 'Moana', as the Disney film looks to top the box office charts for the third week in succession.

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Kate Gorney and T.J. Miller arrives at the 2016 American Music Awards held at the Microsoft Theatre, Los Angeles, California, United States - Sunday 20th November 2016

T.J. Miller arrives at the 2016 American Music Awards held at the Microsoft Theatre, Los Angeles, California, United States - Sunday 20th November 2016

Deadpool Trailer

Formerly a soldier in the Special Forces, Wade Wilson finds himself dealt a bad hand when he is diagnosed with cancer in all his major organs. Soon, however, he is approached by a scientist who promises not only to cure him and save his life, but also give him powers beyond humanity. He agrees to undergo their experiments, but it isn't long before he realises that things may have just gone from bad to worse for him. He ends up badly disfigured and extremely unstable, dubbing his new self Deadpool and finds comfort only in his whimsical musings and inappropriate humour. When this fails to satisfy him in the long term, he decides to use his newfound powers to get back at the man who subjected him to those horrific experiments, while enjoying a few killing sprees along the way. Unfortunately, he's not the only deadly supernatural being on this planet, and he's about to discover some real enemies along the way.

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Deadpool - Teaser Trailer

Wade Wilson isn't your average superhero. Indeed, he has fewer morals and a brutal villainous streak that makes him particularly formidable to his many enemies. After undergoing horrific abuse as an experimental subject while working as a soldier in the Special Forces, he has been left deformed and dangerously unstable, with incredible supernatural abilities that allow him to heal at an accelerated rate. Now a mercenary with a feverish taste for blood, Wilson becomes the anti-hero Deadpool and takes his fascination with pain to the lengths of revenge, determined to get back at the person who mutilated him and ruined his life. Whimsical musings aside, Deadpool is lethal and will stop at nothing to punish his tormentors.

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Ryan Reynolds And 'Deadpool' Wow Comic Con As First Trailer Receives Standing Ovation

By Stephanie Chase in Movies / TV / Theatre on 12 July 2015

Ryan Reynolds Gina Carano TJ Miller

But spare a thought for the Green Lantern who got some serious shade thrown his way…

Ryan Reynolds was greeted with a huge ovation as he took to the stage at Hall H for the Deadpool Comic Con panel, which ended up being one of the highlights of an already very newsworthy convention. During the panel the actor debuted the film’s first trailer to the enthusiastic crowd, who showed their support for Reynolds and the movie, which has been his passion project for years.

Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool Ryan Reynolds stars as Deadpool in the upcoming superhero movie.

The trailer was everything fans could have hoped for, with action scenes, swearing, a bit of sex and of course lots and lots of humour. There was also a very welcome reference to the character’s first big screen outing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine when the voiceover said, "From the studio that inexplicably sewed his f--king mouth shut the first time…”

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'Big Hero 6' Further Merges Disney With Marvel

By Rich Cline in Movies / TV / Theatre on 30 January 2015

Disney Scott Adsit TJ Miller Jamie Chung

Since the Disney-Marvel Union began, people have wondered if Disney was going to make their own adaptation of a Marvel property. Turns out, "their own adaptation" is rather different to the original.

After Disney bought Marvel, bringing the Avengers in-house, it didn't take long before producers started going through Marvel's extensive library of comic books in search of a property to develop into an animated adventure. 'Big Hero 6' is the first Disney-Marvel animation project. Although critics have wondered just how much Marvel is left in the movie.

Hiro and Baymax were redesigned to be more 'Disney friendly'

First published in 1998, 'Big Hero 6' was created by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau in their spare time while they worked on another project. It's about a group of politicians and business owners who recruit and train a team of agents with superhuman powers for the Japanese government.

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Big Hero 6 Review

By Rich Cline

Good

Fans of bright, flashy things will love this colourful, kinetic animated adventure, although anyone seeking originality or involving characters should probably look elsewhere. This is the first Disney animation based on a Marvel comic book, although they have essentially only retained the title and a vague semi-Asian setting. The result is a film that feels like something you've already seen before, with the usual Disney plot formula, characters and action beats, plus lots of sentimentality. At least it's witty and fast-paced enough to keep us entertained.

The futuristic setting is San Fransokyo, a slightly more Japanese version of San Francisco in which 15-year-old computer-geek orphan Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) lives with his Aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph). Both are shaken when Hiro's brother Tadashi dies in an explosion Hiro thinks he might have caused. Then he meets Tadashi's health-care robot invention Baymax (Scott Adsit), a cuddly inflatable creature who just wants to take care of Hiro. He goes along with Hiro's plan to turn him into a fighting machine that helps find the masked man who stole Hiro's microbot invention and actually caused the explosion. Baymax also helps Hiro assemble the Big Hero 6 team, adding Tadashi's nerd-inventor pals: goofy Fred (T.J. Miller), rebellious Go Go (Jamie Chung), nice-guy Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.) and girly Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez). Together they set out to stop the villain before he enacts his nefarious plan.

All of this is animated with bright colours and a snappy sense of the technology. There are several exhilarating set-pieces along the way as the young heroes work out their special powers by inventing all sorts of gadgets. But nothing about the script meaningfully deepens these characters. Each person on-screen is essentially one personality trait, while potentially colourful side roles (including Aunt Cass) are left badly undefined. What holds the interest is the superb interaction between Hiro and Baymax, mainly because of the obvious affection between them. And also because Baymax has all of the film's funniest lines.

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Make No Mistake, 'Big Hero 6' Could Be Disney's Finest In Years

By Michael West in Movies / TV / Theatre on 05 November 2014

TJ Miller

'Big Hero 6' could take $60 million to beat 'Interstellar' at the box-office this weekend.

Disney kept its latest animated adventure, Big Hero 6, under lock-and-key for some time. And now we know why. The action-packed big-budget movie appears to be the studio's secret weapon for 2014 and the critics have waxed lyrical ahead of release on Friday (November 7, 2014).

Big Hero 6 goes up against Interstellar at the box-offie this weekend

It tells the story of robotics prodigy Hiro Hamanda, who learns to harness is genius with a little help from his brother Tadeshi and friends Go Go Tamago, Wasabi, Honey Lemon and Fred. However, when a devastating turn of events catapults the gang into a dangerous plot unfolding on the streets of San Fransokyo, Hiro is forced to turn to his closest friend, a robot by the name of Baymax, to try and solve the mystery.

Continue reading: Make No Mistake, 'Big Hero 6' Could Be Disney's Finest In Years