[three-star-rating]Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Monaghan[/three-star-rating]
Pixels recalls a trip to the video arcade, where a kid could blow through a whole week’s allowance for some mindless fun. Part teenaged actioner, part adult nostalgia trip, Pixels is a frivolous, fun waste of time and money.
This flick is a surprising success for Sandler’s production company, Happy Gilmore. More than that, everyone involved knows it’s just a silly distraction, without a crass comment anywhere, built merely to entertain – just like the great 80s icons it highlights.
In 1982, Sandler was a childhood video game champion who lost to legend Dinklage. Even though his friends James and Gad told Sandler he’d still go far in life, the defeat sunk Sandler. As an adult he’s a divorcee whose career is hooking up people’s entertainment systems and home computers.
It’s a great twist that James became President of the U.S. Merely imagining how this could happen is funny enough. His bumbling makes it even better.
Unfortunately, aliens have mistaken a message we sent into space as a threat. They use old video games to challenge us to war. Marines and scientists cannot beat this threat as well as Sandler and the other nerds who dedicated themselves to hours in the arcade.
The special effects are solid, and the old games are fun to see brought to life. More importantly, video characters, ‘80s icons, and many stars make cameos throughout the film. This flick not only pleases teenagers but also reminds Generation X of the pop culture of our formative years.
Some of Sandler’s typical production team is present and accounted for; Tim Herlihy is on of the scriptwriters (The Wedding Singer, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and Big Daddy). This could have easily spelled another Sandler stupidity-fest – brainless goofiness and possibly a box office bomb (like the recent Blended). As a producer, Sandler is smart to team Herlihy up with Thank You for Smoking writer Timothy Dowling.
Even more brilliant is recruiting director Chris Columbus, whose films include crowd-pleasing blockbusters like the first two Harry Potter films and Mrs. Doubtfire. Because Columbus comes from a screenwriting background – The Lost Boys, The Goonies, and Gremlins – he knows how to pump up a ho-hum script. His experience showcasing pop culture means that Pixels is better than its clever concept – a feat of sheer, mind-numbing fun.
Honestly, Sandler’s not our greatest actor, nor is he a brilliant producer (his films’ profit varying wildly). Typically, Sandler taps sloppy Dennis Dugan (the Grown Ups films, That’s My Boy) to direct Herihy’s mediocre scripts. Mixing up his team – especially signing up someone the caliber of Columbus – should be done more often.
[rating-key]
Besides the many pop cultural pop-ups, the script doesn’t have any other surprises, and the characters don’t really elicit any emotional connection. The premise is pretty shallow and the plot improbabilities a little hard to buy. Furthermore, the movie creates its own rules and then breaks one or two of them. However, the laughs are consistent, if not uproarious.
Still – as a trip down memory lane, and as a pleasant waste of a couple hours – you could do much worse. You could go blow all your quarters on Pac-Man. How stupid is that?
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