I'm a big Adam Sandler fan. With the right plot, he can be incredibly funny ("Click," "50 First Dates," "Hotel Transylvania" "Water Boy," "Grown Ups,"
), but when the script isn't on his side, he tends to crash hard ("I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry," "You Don't Mess With the Zohan," "Bedtime Stories," "Jack and Jill,"
). I would place "Pixels" somewhere in between. It's an interesting premise to have aliens attack Earth using video games brought to life, but the problem is that Sandler is still basically playing the forgotten screwball character we've seen several times before. Maybe if he had played this role straight, it might have worked. In the movie, he plays Sam Brenner, basically Billy Madison as a video game player whose life went nowhere after losing a contest against his rival Eddie, played to the hilt by Peter Dinklage. His character is rude, offensive and immature, basically an eight-year-old in a forty-year old body. Kevin James is his best friend, Will Cooper, who as President calls him up to fight aliens using video games as weapons and battlefield strategies. The entire premise is played as straight as it can be with the three of them joining up with Josh Gad to fight the invasion or at least show the military how to do it. It's really hard to believe that in a country of over several billion people that there are only three top video game experts to be found. There are a lot of juvenile characteristics in the main characters; Gad himself acting annoyingly unbearable, obnoxious and creepy at times; there is absolutely no point for any of this. Michelle Monaghan of "True Detective" plays the woman meant to be his female foil and future inevitable love interest accompanied by Matthew Lintz as her son. Possibly the best part is the recurring 80s pop culture moments (young Madonna is transmitted by the aliens giving a declaration of war
). While the movie is fun to watch, the credibility eventually gets strained to the limit. It's not all Sandler's fault; the problem is that the movie is over-stuffed with stuff like androids with glass heads that serve no purpose and plot points (Gad somehow wins the "love" of a pixel-created "Lara Croft" character) that stretch the credibility of a plot that is already incredible. There are some funny moments, like an old lady obliviously watching TV as Sandler battles aliens in her living room, and several cameos by Jane Krakowski, Brian Cox, Sean Bean and Dan Aykroyd among others, but overall, the movie just seems to be one long special effects-laden acid trip. I like the movie, but there's no substance to it.
Review of Pixels
