Pixels ~ Right out of the box, this movie had more than a few things against it, first and foremost is that it stars
Adam Sandler. Now admittedly, I don't hate Adam Sandler as much as I used to.
The Wedding Singer is actually pretty darn good, and there are a couple others that don't make me want to blind myself with scissors immediately when they come on. It also stars
Kevin James as the President of the United States. I'll just leave that right there and let that little nugget fry into your brain before I even get to the plot of this one.
Now follow along, folks. Back in the eighties days of
videogames and
arcades, Sandler and James were champions, along with Josh Gad (the dimwitted but lovable snowman from
Disney's Frozen) and believe it or not, Peter Dinklage (who I hope fired his agent for this). Today, they are pretty much losers - yes, including President Kevin James, the others being a electronics installer, a criminal, a conspiracy theorist, and an ineffectual President.
The bad news is that all those years ago video footage of their tournament was sent into space by NASA, and now that footage has been answered by an alien race who believe it to be a declaration of war. These misguided but powerful enemies begin to attack Earth using videogames as their weapons, a la 'the form of the destructor' from the original
Ghostbusters. Yes, we get attacked by
Galaga on the aliens' first strike.
The situation gets worse from there as
Centipede and
Pac-Man attack and the president recruits his old friends to 'fight fire with fire,' as only old school videogamers know how to beat the bad guys at their own, pardon the pun, game. It gets old real quick. Now normally I steer clear of Adam Sandler flicks, but
this juicy and explicit video review (not safe for work or kids) made it impossible to pass up. I just
had to see this train wreck.
What is interesting to me is that before anyone,
Ghosthead or
not, spoke up about how the remake/reboot/re-imagining of
Ghostbusters was ruining their childhood, the same accusations were made at
this movie… and in this case, I can kinda see it. I grew up in the era of these videogames, and it does kinda feel like these people are taking a crap on my childhood.
Now it's not as bad as the above reviewer says, but it is pretty awful. If it wasn't for free cable I would be complaining much more loudly. It's watchable, and the kids might enjoy it more than adults, but then again, they won't have the slightest clue about these games or the other dated pop culture references here. And Peter Dinklage should be ashamed of himself…
