Pixels (2015) | Movie Review

As a child of the late seventies and early eighties, electronic entertainment was not as commonplace as it is today. Birthdays and Christmas morning usually involved stacks of toys consisting of action figures, spaceships, board games, Legos, chemistry sets, microscopes, plastic models, comic books, and the usual assortment of clothing items. Anything electronic was either a remote controlled vehicle of some kind or had a voice-box. However, there was that one special day that I received a new toy that had kids around the world frothing at the mouth, and parents clamoring for overtime to pay for it.

The Atari 2600.

The Atari 2600 opened up worlds of imagination I never knew possible. Populated by such characters as Pac-Man, Q-bert, Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Pitfall Harry – to name just a few – it was a universe in which I was God, able to control the fate of others with the a tight grip, a flick of the wrist, and the push of a button. What a feeling it was, and how I long for it at times when the responsibilities of life become overwhelming.

2015 is turning out to be a year of nostalgic whimsy for our generation. “Mad Max: Fury Road”, “Terminator Genisys”, and “Jurassic World” have pulled us into cinemas and awakened fond memories of the glorious blockbusters of yesteryear. In a few short months, the Granddaddy of them all will roar back onto screens with lightsabers and rocket thrusters blazing.

But – right now – it is time to let our blocky friends take center stage.

“Pixels” is the latest comedy from Chris Columbus, a writer/director who is responsible for many a nostalgic cinematic turn in his own right. Behind the lens he has guided “Harry Potter”, Kevin McCallister, and Robin Williams in drag to global box-office glory. Behind the keyboard, he helped bring “The Goonies”, “Gremlins”, and “Young Sherlock Holmes” to life for kids who –still today as grownups – thrill at the mention of the ‘truffle shuffle’ and see blenders and microwaves as essential tools of destruction should supernatural vermin ever invade their homes.

Swinging around to the other side of the camera, we have America’s favorite sad-sack motor mouth. It hasn’t been the same the last few years for Adam Sandler, with many saying his glory days are behind him. Does this latest offering spell out ‘Game Over’ for the man who once guaranteed box office gold, or does he step up his game and snag that extra life just in the nick of time? Let’s take a gander.

Our story opens in 1982 with best buds Sam Brenner and Will Cooper rushing to check out the new video game arcade that just opened up in town. Will is pretty much Tonto to Sam’s Lone Ranger, and prophesizes that his best friend is destined for great things. Upon crossing the threshold, they stand in awe of the clusters of video game uprights and other coin operated wonders. This is their nirvana, a wondrous locale where glory awaits at the drop of a quarter. In time, Sam proves to be a prodigy of the joystick and ball roller. Will…not so much, though he does seem to be quite adept at ‘The Claw’, a skill that will come in handy a few years down the road. Sam’s talents take them to a video game competition where they pick up a new bud, conspiracy-theorist-in-the-making Ludlow Lamonsoff, as well as a new nemesis, Eddie ‘The Fire Blaster’ Plant, a fellow gamer whose skills at the uprights are only surpassed by his extreme narcissism. The competition comes down to a Donkey Kong face-off between Sam and Eddie. Who wins? Well, I’ll let you find out for yourself. It’s time to step forward a few decades to see what our boys are up to now.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The entire video game competition was videotaped. The videotape, as announced by the emcee, will be sent into space by NASA in a capsule to alert possible alien life to our existence and culture. This becomes a bit important later on.

Fast forward to present day where we find adult Sam (Adam Sandler) living a life that doesn’t quite match up to what his young friend foresaw. Divorced and smacked around by the intervening years, he mopes through life working for a company – with a very unfortunate name – installing home entertainment systems. While on a call, he meets Violet (Michelle Monaghan), a single mother whose marriage has recently fallen apart. In a funny and touching moment, the two find in each other a kindred spirit, though one of them wants to be a bit more kindred than the other. Before things can get too romantic or embarrassing (which will it be?) Sam receives a call from his old friend Will (Kevin James) who tells him to get his butt to The White House pronto. Yeah, that White House. It seems the sidekick has surpassed the hero, as Will is now the President of the United States. A bit of a goofy one, but President nonetheless.

Upon his arrival, Will tells Sam that Guam was attacked by a powerful, unknown force. The attack was picked up by satellite and bears a strong resemblance to a game they enjoyed in their younger days. What follows is a series of events leading up to the realization that the videotape of the competition was, in fact, found by aliens and they misinterpreted it as a declaration of war. As the extraterrestrial onslaught begins, with the invaders taking on the guise of classic video game characters, Sam must step up and become the man he should have been, using his antiquated gamer talents to save the world. Along for the ride are Will, Violet, the recently resurfaced Ludlow (Josh Gad) who is more paranoid and manic than ever before, and old enemy Eddie (Peter Dinklage) who hasn’t changed a bit in the thirty-odd years since their last meeting.

I gotta admit, I didn’t have the highest of hopes walking into this. I figured there was going to be a lot of mugging for the camera, funny voices, and pratfalls all mixed together in a sea of CGI.

Boy, was I surprised.

Listen, this movie is certainly not going to win any awards for originality. Thinking back on it, it’s basically “Ghostbusters” with aliens filling in for the ghosts, right down to Donkey Kong taking over for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. But for what this film lacks in originality, it more than makes up for it in heart and humor. There are moments between characters that are truly touching, and they are not being shoved down your throat. They come across more in words than in actions, in simple scenes where there is not much more going on than just two people sitting across from one another having a chat. Some of my favorites involve exchanges between Sam and Violet’s young son Matty (Matt Linz) as they bridge the generation gap between them through their mutual love of video games. This kid isn’t the pain-in-the-ass foil to our hero who so often pops up in these kinds of movies. He’s smart and soft-spoken, and I really enjoyed the bond that develops between him and the guy who has eyes for his mom. The same goes for Sandler and Kevin James. It should come as no surprise that they are friends in real life as there is an ease and naturalness to their interactions that really comes across here. They are truly best buds, even when they are taking the piss out of one another.

Adam Sandler has a habit of slouching around when he’s on screen, and here it really serves the character. Sam had his hopes and dreams slip between his fingers, and his body and monotone delivery of zingers brings that out. And what zingers they are; very funny and not at all insulting or obnoxious. I was laughing more often than not. Kudos to the writers, though I did get the impression there was some improvising going on with how natural they flow forth.

Kevin James as The President may raise a few eyebrows, but it works, and he often seems just as surprised as we are at where he has ended up. Like Sandler, he reels things in a bit here, finding his funnier moments more in real life circumstances we can all identify with rather than off-the-wall, whacked out happenings. Michelle Monaghan’s Violet, even though she’s not out in the trenches as much as the boys, isn’t just some pretty face waiting in the wings to embrace the conquering hero. She’s a tough cookie herself, and plays an important role in the war against the space invaders. She and Sandler are great playing off one another.

In the end, it’s left up to Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage to deliver the more over the top performances in our little tale. While Gad is obviously the wackier of the two, he did have tighter control of his character. There were a couple of cringey moments, like when he tries to deliver a pep talk to a platoon of soldiers, but he was a believable and sympathetic lunatic. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Dinklage. He is always a force to be reckoned with in dramatic roles, but I find he sometimes flounders when thrown into the comedic arena, and sadly it happens here. His unrelenting self-obsession and need to mock others wears thin pretty quickly, and I kept hoping he would take a cue from his costars and dial it back a bit. There were times where I was wondering who was chewing the scenery more, Dinklage or Pac-Man. Still, he has his moments, and he delivers one of the film’s biggest laughs at the end.

A lot of other familiar faces pop up here and there, including Dan Aykroyd and Brian Cox, and they do what they do and do it well. Numerous celebrities, living and dead, from various backgrounds in the 80’s are utilized in a clever plot device that I won’t spoil here, but I just want to say that it caught me off guard and had me grinning from ear to ear.

The action set pieces are great fun with some well-constructed special effects, especially the integration of the game characters into the real world, and the destruction of said characters as they break up into tiny, pixelated blocks. The Centipede scene was the standout for me, and the Pac-Man chase in Mini-Coopers was a close second. They did irk me in one way, though, as they seemed to run from best to least best over the course of the film. Don’t get me wrong, they were good, but we always hope for bigger and better as a movie progresses. When that doesn’t happen, it serves to deflate the film as we charge towards the end. It also doesn’t help that a good bit of the charm and humor that was handled so well in the first two thirds of the film largely disappears in the final act, lost amidst the cacophony of the aliens’ final assault.

Like a marathon runner, “Pixels” starts out strong, keeps a steady pace for the most part, but falters a bit towards the end. It still comes out a winner, but it doesn’t look as fresh as it did in the beginning.

I feel nostalgia is going to play a large part in the enjoyment of this film, not just for gamers but for anyone who was a child during the 80s. The movie seems almost to become a game itself at points, wanting you to try and spot the references to that wonderful decade of mad hairdos and parachute pants. I have to admit, it got ahold of me, and one of the biggest kicks I got out of the film was a tiny moment where a kid was riding a banana bike in the background. Do you know what a banana bike is? Google it. It’s glorious.

Younger viewers may not be as taken with it as I was, and I fear a lot of the sly references will fly way over their heads. I hope it doesn’t keep them away, because I really do feel the success of the movie lies more in its heart than anywhere else. This would be a great movie for fathers and sons to see together as it’s a blending together of two generations that are more connected than either might think.

In the end, I had a lot of fun with “Pixels”. It’s pretty much by the numbers in its execution, but it touched me, made me laugh, and I really enjoyed hanging out with these characters. The action doesn’t rewrite the books like Mad Max did, but it was never boring.

I’m sure haters will put this movie down simply because they think it’s ‘Just another Adam Sandler movie’. Let them, but don’t let what they say sway you. If nostalgia is coloring my glasses rose-red, then I will gladly bask in the tint.

“Pixels” is a damn entertaining movie. What the heck is wrong with that?

Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage
Written by Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling
Directed by Chris Columbus

 

David McGrath
Contributing Reviewer
The Hollywood Outsider