Pixels

Overview

Pixels is a movie that demonstrates how two rights can make a significant wrong.

The first ‘right' is a brilliant Futurama vignette named ‘Raiders of the Lost Arcade’ that featured in the 2002 episode ‘Anthology of Interest II’. In it, the protagonist, Fry, queries what life would be like as a video game, whereupon characters based on ‘80s arcade staples like Space Invaders and Donkey Kong invade earth, and Fry proves to be the only one capable of stopping them thanks to his misspent youth as a gamer. The second ‘right' is a 2010 short film by Patrick Jean named ‘Pixles', in which pixelated arcade characters invade earth and reduce everything to, well, pixels. Together, these two sources constitute almost the entirety of the plot, title and visuals of Adam Sandler’s latest outing, where, unfortunately, the whole is very much poorer than its parts.

Much of this is because of the missteps made in the means by which those parts were combined. Pixels, to put it simply, is an excellent idea turned into a children’s film where almost every joke is aimed at people over 30. In other words, it seems to have no idea who it’s actually catering to. Consider the final scene: just moments after the adorable merchandise children’s toy character ‘Q-Bert’ says something cute to make kids laugh, there’s an extended threesome joke involving Serena Williams and Martha Stewart.

And it’s not the first in the film. Not by a long shot. The action scenes are solid and fast-paced, yet the first one doesn’t arrive for almost an hour, with the preceding 50-odd minutes spent on a semi-romantic subplot that lacks both romance and plot. It all feels very much a victim of studio influence — a failed attempt to hedge box office bets by playing to both children and adults without giving either enough of what they want.

On paper, the cast of Pixels is pretty decent. Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad and Kevin James play the adult versions of Sander’s childhood arcade gaming buddies, now a convict, conspiracy theorist and President of the United States respectively (no, seriously, James is President). Michelle Monaghan plays the ‘love interest’/senior DARPA scientist (in that order), representing the only real female role of any substance, albeit with most of her character development involving wildly different hairstyles in every scene without any mention made of it. Ashley Benson also makes an appearance as ‘the hot girl’ who literally doesn’t say a single word in the entire film. She just switches back and forth between pouting, kissing and ‘being hot’.

Ultimately, director Chris Columbus has actually crafted a half-watchable film here, which — given the script — is something of an achievement. The Harry Potter director brings an energy and light-heartedness to the action sequences, complete with a handful of those trademark uplifting, fist-pumping moments of exuberance that defined his exhilarating Quidditch matches. There are also a couple of solid laugh-out-loud jokes and nifty ‘80s nostalgia references that frustrate more than entertain because of their infrequency. Had Pixels been predominantly an action movie, the plot vacuum might have mattered less, but with so little action to enjoy, at least until the final 15 minutes or so, we’re left with a film that feels like a giant missed opportunity, and that will likely fade fast from the memories of all who see it.