‘Pixels’, the latest Adam Sandler film, works best as a case study of how not to use a wild concept.
Despite the premise of aliens transforming into massive versions of 80s-era arcade characters to destroy the earth, the film isn’t a showcase for the famous 8-bit wonders Columbia Pictures paid money to use. Instead, it is a standard Adam Sandler film about a bitter jerk in a wacky situation who overcomes his problems but remains a jerk, with video game characters simply thrown in.
The movie, helmed by Chris Columbus (who directed the first two ‘Harry Potter’ films), concerns Sam Brenner (Sandler), a former video game prodigy whose life went downhill after he lost the 1982 United States arcade championship. A tape of the championship was then put into a time capsule and jettisoned into outer space.
Thirty years later, extraterrestrials have taken the video as a challenge and have decided to destroy the planet by turning into the stars of games like ‘Pac-Man’ and ‘Galaga'.Brenner is tasked by William ‘Chewie’ Cooper (Kevin James), his childhood best friend and the American President, to use his ability to recognize the patterns within his old playthings to stop the aliens. He teams up with former arcade buddy Ludlow (Josh Gad) and the man who beat him at the championships all those years ago, Eddie Plant (Peter Dinklage, armed with a mullet and an ever-changing accent).
It’s convenient that Sandler’s character is a disappointed sad-sack, as he looks tired and bored here. The video game characters are merely obstacles for him to fight; with the exception of a bit that provides a small bit of energy involving a fictionalised version of ‘Pac-Man’ creator Toru Iwatani (Denis Akiyama) and his gigantic lemon-coloured 'son', barely any jokes are made about any of the computerised antagonists. This causes the film to feel disconnected from the creatures that are arguably the main draw of the movie.Many of the film’s attempt at levity comes from Brenner mocking everyone around him; many of the barbs are directed at his inexplicable love interest Lieutenant Colonel Violet Van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), who is dubbed "snobby” by Brenner after she refuses to kiss him despite only meeting him five minutes prior.
Monaghan, a charismatic and talented actress, is reduced to essentially playing an emotional yo-yo, doing little else other than smiling or scowling at Sandler.With that in mind, all of the women in 'Pixels' follow that same trope – as they are either prudes or walking rewards for the obnoxious heroes. One female is a digitised warrior vixen with no dialogue come to life that falls in love with another character for no reason. At one point culinary Martha Stewart, frequently mentioned as someone Plant is attracted to, literally makes him a sandwich. The bar is that low here.
The few signs of life are exhibited only by Dinklage and Gad, who were clearly having fun while filming. Gad gets the funniest scene as his nerdy conspiracy nut attempts to motivate trained soldiers by calling them “man boy maggot people” and other half-baked insults.
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The entire project wastes its interesting idea on stupid jokes (worst of all, stupid jokes that aren’t even funny) and bits involving interesting characters instead of the video game characters the entire nostalgia-driven enterprise is based on.
Very rarely is a focus on characters over special effects a bad thing. In this case, however, when most of the subjects aren’t paying attention, more of the arcade monsters would be a relief.
