Pixels

It really shouldn’t be this difficult to make a good videogame based movie.

In fact, I’m convinced that gaming is gaining ground in terms of becoming the best outlet to experience amazing storytelling and allowing us to become completely immersed in new and interesting worlds, second only to film, but with a movie like Pixels, it’s annoying that these two mediums still can’t play well together.

The premise: aliens have developed weapons of mass gaming and have sent them to Earth to challenge us to a literal game of death. Of course, nerds must save the world from being destroyed by rampant 80’s gaming icons, all the while not becoming a pixilated version of themselves. Sounds badass, right? Can’t wait to see it, right? Ok, cool but by the way Adam Sandler’s in it. And the guy who voiced Olaf (Josh Gad)…and a white trashy mullet wearing Peter Dinklage…and Kevin James too, who is somehow the President of the United States…and now you understand exactly why we can’t have nice things.

I can’t help how pissed I am that they slapped this film with a Happy Madison Productions tag and called it a day. Why was Adam Sandler’s name even brought up during the pre-production of this movie? Why does he always look so bored all the time? He brings literally nothing to the table but, sadly enough, this film would have felt like a subpar Adam Sandler flick even if he were not involved. It’s just that lazy of a film.

Fear not, however, because the whole badass idea that’s the backdrop of this story actually lives up to most of its promise, even if the commercials and trailers give away literally everything. I don’t know why the third act twist needed to be revealed so blatantly in the promos (or practically everything else for that matter) but I guess that since these parts were the only saving graces in the film, they had to do something to get people in the theater. Go figure.

Pixels is often at its best when director Chris Columbus focuses on the real reason we all went to see this movie in the first place: pixilated destruction rained down by some of the best old school videogame characters ever created. The entire Pac-Man sequence pretty much single handedly made sitting through the rest of the movie tolerable and while ruined in the trailers, the whole Donkey Kong battle was exciting if only a tad bit rushed. Columbus kinda just does his thing and plays these scenes with the same wonder and fun filled excitement that he’s had success with in the first two Harry Potter films and original Percy Jackson movie. It’s just a shame that to back him up they plopped Adam Sandler into the mix, which started sinking the ship before it even set sail.

That being said, Gad’s performance is really the only stand out casting choice of the bunch. He gives a hilarious take on what could have been an annoying character that seems more improvised than anything, which is exactly why Gad kills it in the role. Peter Dinklage, on the other hand, tries to top Gad with the weird lunacy of his own character but really only ends up coming off as mildly amusing. He’s much more annoying and obnoxious and his shtick really just falls flat after seeing him onscreen after a few times. Everyone else, main character or otherwise, doesn’t really add much to the script either. I will say the cameo by Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, is handled well, but again, the trailers took the laughs out of that scene pretty much immediately. I still wish they could have found a way to slip Shigeru Miyamoto in as a wink to Donkey Kong, but I’m thinking it’s best he stayed on the sidelines for this one.

While the acting and casting choices may put most people off, this film really does try to save itself with a few inspired action scenes that, in the end, really don’t do enough to make Pixels come across as much more than mockery of one of nerd culture’s favorite pastimes. I won’t touch on how mishandled Q*bert was or how terrible that song was during the credits, (it almost made that horrible new Ninja Turtles theme song sound legit) but just know that this one is definitely not the videogame movie you’re looking for.

Move along.