Pixels

Say what you will about the current body of work of Adam Sandler, but the thing is, the guy always at least seems to be having fun making his movies.  In Pixels, we get to see a very different Sandler.  He is deflated, kind of quiet, and looks tired.  Maybe he was having doubts about the project while he was making it, or maybe he knew that people would be coming to see the special effects and not him, so he just didn't feel the need to try as hard.

Pixels is a supremely dimwitted movie built around a premise that could have been clever if only it had been given room to breathe amongst the effects and the lame jokes.  We learn that in the early 80s, a time capsule containing video footage of pop culture of the time period was shot out into outer space in the hopes of possibly reaching alien life.  Amongst that footage was a tape of a 1982 video game tournament.  The capsule did reach an alien life, who somehow interpreted the footage as a declaration of war from Earth.  Now, some 33 years after the footage was shot out into the stars, the aliens have decided to attack Earth with giant monsters that take the form of video game icons like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.  Far-fetched as the idea behind the movie sounds, I think it could have worked as a special effects comedy.  It would just need to be fleshed out - Maybe make the aliens extremely stupid or something to help explain how they could interpret the footage of 80s pop culture as a war declaration.

The movie gives us nothing, and so it quickly turns into a series of ideas up on the screen with nothing to connect them to anything, other than the filmmakers thought the visuals would look really good.  We learn nothing about the aliens - Who they are, where they come from, how they misinterpreted the videos so badly, and why they waited so long to attack us.  And why attack Earth with video games in the first place?  Are we to believe they have the technology to create giant, deadly versions of video game characters, but not a weapon powerful enough to destroy all the Earth at once?  Why go through all this trouble?  If you want to destroy Earth, as these aliens apparently do, just destroy it, don't toy with the humans by sending Pac-Man down to the streets of Manhattan.  And just what do these aliens want?  Near the end of the film, we hear the President of the United States (Sandler regular Kevin James) talk about negotiations with the aliens.  Yet, we don't see this happen, nor do we hear about what these negotiations entailed.  Wouldn't it be kind of nice to know just what these aliens wanted in these all-important negotiations?  Hello?  Is anybody listening?

Adam Sandler stars in the film as Sam Brenner, a guy who peaked when he was 13-years-old when he almost beat the reigning video game champ at Donkey Kong at the previously mentioned 1982 tournament.  Since then, his life has been pretty aimless as he makes a living hooking up entertainment centers in people's homes.  His childhood best friend Cooper (Kevin James) has done a little better than him, growing up to be President.  However, Cooper's poll numbers are in the toilet, and he tells Sam early on that his wife hates him.  What's puzzling is that when we see Cooper and the First Lady a little while later, they're having fun making a cake together for some reason, and goofing around.  But I digress.  Reports start coming into the White House from all over the world that military bases are being attacked by mysterious ships that resemble the galactic alien bug villains from the classic arcade game Galaga.  Seeing that the enemy ships are using the exact same attack pattern that they did in the games, the President decides that the best course of action is to have Brenner lead a crack squad of classic video game addicts to fight back against the advancing video game hoard.

Two other players from the old days join Brenner in battle.  They include Ludlow (Josh Gad), an obnoxious man-child who is obsessed with conspiracy theories and is equally obsessed with a video game heroine the filmmakers made up named Lady Lisa, and Eddie (Peter Dinklage), an egotistical gamer who was the one who beat Brenner at that video game tournament years ago, and is now in prison for computer hacking crimes.  His demands for helping Brenner out?  A full pardon for his crimes, and a sexual three-way with him, Serena Williams and Martha Stewart.  If Sandler can be accused of not bringing enough life to his performance, then Gad and Dinklage bring too much, and often come across as being shrill.  The guys must participate in real life recreations of classic video games, such as blasting digital Centipedes that drop from the sky over Hyde Park in London, or chasing after Pac-Man in "ghost cars" through the streets of New York.  These lengthy effect sequences that recreate classic games in real world environments are obviously intended to be the highlights of the film.  And while they are well executed, the film's ad campaign has already given away almost everything there is to see.

So, what do we have left to look forward to in-between these special effects sequences?  A lot of filler dialogue, some one-liners that barely register a chuckle, and an ineffective romantic subplot between Brenner and one of the President's lead military officers (Michelle Monaghan).  What's strange is that in all these scenes when the characters are not being attacked by video game monsters, nobody seems to act like there is an alien invasion going on at all.  They're like scenes from another movie.  At one point, the young son of Brenner's love interest is kidnapped by the aliens, yet she barely seems bothered by this, except when she actually enters the alien mothership, and sees her boy in the clutches of Donkey Kong.  Even then, she doesn't seem all that visibly upset.

Very little makes sense in Pixels, and there are many moments where it seems like the screenwriters are just making the stuff up as they went along during a marathon writing session.  Why do the aliens communicate to the humans through poorly dubbed video tape footage of 80s icons like President Reagan, Hall and Oates, Madonna and Max Headroom whenever they issue threats to Earth?  And why do the aliens reward Sandler and his team for beating them at games with "trophies" that include video game pets?  When Sandler's team beat the Centipede challenge, we see a little old lady get rewarded with the video game dog from Nintendo's Duck Hunt.  When they win at Pac-Man, the heroes are rewarded with Q-Bert, who becomes kind of a sidekick/annoying comic relief to Sandler for the rest of the movie.  Again, none of this is explained.  It just happens.  A lot of stuff in this movie just seems to happen for no reason.

I imagine little kids will have fun with Pixels, though they likely won't get all the old video game references and in-jokes.  Anyone old enough to have played or remember these games back in the day may get a sense of nostalgia here and there, but are likely to be bored the rest of the time.  The thing is, with some effort, I could see this movie working.  All it would need is a star who acted like he actually wanted to be in the movie, and a script that actually tried to make sense of itself.

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