Pixels

Adam Sandler has become a pathetic figure. Watching him in Pixels is akin to watching a once great quarterback struggle and fumble as everyone is thinking about how he should have retired years ago. The guy has talent, but so many efforts to broaden his horizons have flopped, he just churns out klunker after klunker for fat paychecks. I think even Adam Sandler has gotten fed up with Adam Sandler.

In Pixels, back in the 1980’s, NASA sent out a time capsule with the hope aliens would find it and learn about our culture. Unfortunately, the capsule contained footage of popular video games like Pac-Man, Asteroids, Centipede and more, which the aliens misinterpreted as a declaration of war.

Now, the aliens have sent weapons that appear and act like the video games to destroy Earth, and President Will Cooper (Kevin James) can only think of one man on the planet who might be able to help – his long time best friend and former video game champion, Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler).

They form a team to take on the video games, but do they have the right stuff to save the planet?

Pixels isn’t 10% as offensive as Sandler’s other movies, but it is boring and a failed attempt to capitalize on a novel idea.

The movie lacks the sense of urgency and fast pace an End Of The World film needs to enthrall the audience with action and danger.

Director Chris Columbus puts everything into the big video arcade game battle scene recreations, but longtime Sandler collaborator and writer Tim Herlihy weighs the movie down with the familiar Sandler tropes of overgrown, immature boy-men, some outlandishly wacky characters who could never exist in real life and a forced love story that falls flat. You feel like Sandler and the team took someone else’s idea (which they did) and polluted it with their usual sludge instead of harvesting the material to be the best it could be.

Worst of all, Sandler doesn’t look like he is trying 95% of the time. Granted, the material is uninspired, the movie is boring and no one is around to push him harder to deliver, but Sandler seems to be on cruise control with an overly familiar monotone set inside the same character he has been playing year in and year out. Where’s the energy? Where’s the charisma? The guy is supposed to be saving the planet and falling in love with a woman much too sexy for him, so how about we show some excitement!

The team relies too much on too little nostalgia to make the audience laugh and enjoy Pixels, when they could have worked on a better script. The movie would have been a thousand times better if everyone embraced the absurdity and went full Sharknado campy!

Pixels is rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive comments.