There are two ways to watch the new film Pixels — 1) you recognize it as the atrociously written disaster that it is and allow it to infuriate you or 2) you give in to the super-fun concept and allow yourself to be thoroughly entertained (despite understanding that the film is awful). If you insist on number 1, I can’t say that I blame you… but I don’t see why we should deny ourselves the joys that this film has to offer (and, yes, there are a few).
The story is totally preposterous. Back in 1982, footage of a video arcade championship was sent up to space as a sort of time capsule. At some point, an alien race intercepted the footage and interpreted the game footage as a declaration of war — so they come to Earth and begin to attack us using the very same super-low-resolution characters they saw in the games, who turn everything they touch or blast into pixels. Enter Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), a divorced tech-installation worker who as a teenager placed second in the 1982 video arcade championship and is now the only person equipped with the skills to defeat the alien attackers. Luckily, his best friend and fellow gamer Cooper (Kevin James) is now the President of the United States, and they quickly jump into action to defeat giant versions of Caterpillar, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong, among others. Joining them in battle are Ludlow (Josh Gad), another childhood gamer friend, Eddie (Peter Dinklage) an arrogant mulleted competitor who defeated Brenner in the 1982 championship, and Lieutenant Colonel Violet van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), who works in the White House.
Screenwriters Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, both veterans of previous Sandler screenplays, have truly outdone themselves with one implausible inanity after another; this is a film that requires an awful lot of suspension of disbelief, even in scenes that don’t feature pixelated-alien destruction. The audience is supposed to just accept that Brenner is invited into war-room meetings with the president, various military officials and Chiefs of Staff, despite having no security clearance — and then placed into a position where he can give orders to Navy SEALs. Naturally, Brenner and Violet also get one of those rom-com courtships where they dislike each other upon meeting, spend the whole film insulting each other, but realize they’re in love before the film is over. But the very worst part of the film belongs to poor Gad, who is given the single most ridiculous love story in cinema history. This is not hyperbole, friends. Gad’s subplot is so utterly misguided and jaw-droppingly absurd that I’m just embarrassed for everyone involved.
All this being said, Pixels is also tons of fun. The sheer lunacy of the concept will likely be this film’s biggest draw, and I applaud the filmmakers for their audacity to go there. I’m too young to feel nostalgic about video arcade games (my childhood was all about Super Nintendo), but I would bet that people who are roughly 40 to 45 years old will find much on-screen to gasp and point at. That’s the point here — seeing the pixelated heroes and villains that defined your childhood up there on screen causing live-action mayhem. At one point, Brenner and co. “play” a few rounds of Pac-Man in the streets of Manhattan, adhering to the rules of the original game. There’s also a climactic Donkey Kong showdown on the classic crooked-horizontal-bars-and-ladders set. These parts of the film, as stupid as they are, are a delight. And they look really cool. The aliens also have a very funny way of communicating with Earth that shouldn’t be spoiled.
Director Chris Columbus does this brand of cartoonish hijinks fairly well, already having films like Adventures in Babysitting, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the Macaulay Culkin Home Alones under his belt. Considering that he usually also produces the films he directs, however, one wishes that he’d choose better material to work with. Dinklage is the standout among the actors and seems to be having a blast playing what can only be described as a cocky ‘80s-high-school-stoner douchebag, a character certainly as different as can be from his Emmy-winning work on Game of Thrones. The film also features Jane Krakowski as the First Lady but fails to give her anything at all to do, which is a cardinal sin in my book.
Don’t think about this film’s logic for too long, or at all, because everything will fall to pieces immediately. Pixels is undeniably a terrible film, but at least it’s also terribly fun. I’ll let you be the judge of how much that’s worth.
