Pixels Movie Review

Pixels is directed by Chris Columbus and is the latest comedy movie in Adam Sandler's filmography. In 1982, NASA sent a probe up into space as a means of contacting potential forms of extra terrestrial life, and in this probe were various examples of retro, arcade video games such as Centipede, Pacman and Donkey Kong. The aliens who received this probe interpreted the message as a declaration of war, and send physical manifestations of these famous video game characters down to Earth to wipe out the human race. Typically, its up to our under-dog hero played by Adam Sandler to stand up against the odds and beat the aliens.

While it may market itself as an outlandish science-fiction film, Pixels is at its core a comedy. I believe you should always judge a comedy as to how much you laugh. Unfortunately, I hardly laughed at all. In between the "video game sequences", you're forced to watch a string of awkward and directionless scenes which were unconvincingly slapped together in the editing room. Pixels undoubtedly has an awesome premise, but it doesn't really have a plot. Movies are all about the execution and unfortunately this time the execution paled in comparison to a premise which deserved so much better.

For me, Pixels seemed cheap and lazy despite the goldmine the filmmakers had in front of them. It honestly felt like the script for this movie was taken by Adam Sandler and his production company only to be tainted with his humour which I personally don't understand. A lot of the jokes in Pixels felt like Adam Sandler and Kevin James in-jokes which no one else got, subsequently near enough all of them fell flat.

It's easy to target the blatant Sony product placement or the news footage complete with professional cuts and angle changes and call the film comedically one dimensional, but for me the single worst aspect of Pixels was the dialogue these characters were forced to spout. A lot of it is atrocious simply because it isn't organic. You listen to some of the sh*t people come out with in this flick and your jaw drops in sheer disbelief. At least mine did.

Adam Sandler didn't even look like he wanted to be there. Even if you as a actor don't find the dialogue you have to say at all funny, it's still your job to sell it. In this film Adam Sandler's lack of conviction during delivery of his comedic dialogue was actually quite striking. His body language gave off a half-assed, I don't give a sh't vibe which became more and more apparent as the film progressed. Michelle Monaghan is in the film alongside Sandler's whose sole purpose is to be his love interest. And if you weren't buying into that aspect of the narrative, Kevin James is the President of the United States.

Peter Dinklage was probably my single favourite thing about Pixels. His character is a self-righteous asshole and considering some of the dialogue he's forced to deliver, I thought Dinklage stood out. He's by far the most talented actor of the entire cast and some of his delivery did make me laugh. By contrast, Josh Gad was terrible. And he screams... a lot. In fact I think that's all he does in the film, scream. On top of that, his character has by far the most ridiculous and disturbing character arc in any film I've seen so far this year. And I've sat through Fantastic Four.

I do recognise that movies are a collaborative effort of hundreds and hundreds of people therefore I will give credit to the visual effects artists for creating some truly breathtaking CGI that wasn't just perfectly crisp and colourful, which also interacted seamlessly with the surrounding environments. However, CGI doesn't make a bad film good especially if you have a screenplay like Pixels. Also, because Pixels constantly tries to blend knowingly outlandish CGI with cartoony green screen, it creates a lot of fake environments. Therefore, the action sequences the trailers try to market are in no way impactful and are completely void of tension and excitement.

Long story short, I didn't like Pixels because as a comedy it didn't make me laugh. It's a film which relies on 1980s nostalgia but consists of humour only 11 year olds will appreciate. Pixels doesn't even understand its own audience, and will go down as wasted potential. I wanted to see this excellent premise come to life, just not in the form of an Adam Sandler comedy:


Rating - D

Thanks for reading,
Matt