Movie review: Pixels

Hello!

I hope you are ready to travel back to the 1980s because this is the review of the Pixels. Enjoy!

To begin with, I think that this movie wasn’t as bad as I was led to believe by a lot of reviews from my most trustworthy critics. It wasn’t a flawless film but it definitely wasn’t the worst Sandler film and that’s saying something. Well, not really. Let’s just continue with the review.

Even before reading and watching the reviews of Pixels, I had my own doubts. One of them is the fact that Pixels is a Sony film, and, with the recent developments within the inside of that company and a track record of terrible films (if you mess Spider Man up for the 3rd time, the nerds won’t allow the 4th time to happen), I was worried how this movie will turn out. The other doubt inspiring thing is the the main start of the motion picture – Adam Sandler. His movies have been getting worse and worse, almost all of them were financial flops and didn’t earn any praises from the critics and fans alike. Personalty, my favorite Sandler’s films are Bedtime Stories and the Grown Ups. Both of them were also panned by the critics, though, I found them enjoyable as a 12 year old. However, 6 years later I can’t say the same about Pixels.

IMDb summary: When aliens misinterpret video feeds of classic arcade games as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth in the form of the video games. Pixels feature film is actually based on a French animated short film with the same name by Patrick Jean. 

Premise 

The premise of the film was genius and had a lot of potential. We have seen films based on video games, but never have these movies actually acknowledge that the games are real and alive. For example, if you take the Need for Speed film (review), you can see that they never talk about any games; they just set their movie in the same world that the game’s action takes place or maybe they borrow some characters and stories from the game. But Pixels goes full on gaming mode and includes a plethora of old games (Centipede, Donkey Kong, Tetris, Pac-Man). They were definetely trying to make the old arcaders feel nostalgia. However, I do believe that they were also trying to appeal to the current gaming community. Gaming channel are huge on YouTube – just look at PewDiePie.

The fact that the movie includes a wide variety of different games begs for me to mention the product placement portion of the film. A few times, I really felt like I was watching a commercial. They should have been more careful with the commercial and merchandise side of the film.

Personally, I’m not a huge gamer. I remember playing Super Mario on an old Terminator 2 console (also know as Nintendo with yellow cartridges) in the early 2000s. Terminator 2 was the Eastern European version Nintendo Famicom. Yes, even when the Cold War ended, life was still hard for people, living in post-Soviet Union countries. On a side note, even though 25 years have passed, I still feel the division between the west and the east today. However, the Internet helps to remove the differences, which I am extremely happy about. But back to the film.

Story

The scrip and the story of the film were quite clever. The cheating twist was interesting and very realistic. However, I didn’t felt like I was watching a comedy, because I didn’t really laugh much.

Also, a few scenes in the film took place in India for the sole purpose of making this film more appealing to Asian audiences. Get that damn Asian money, Sony!

Acting and Cameos

• Adam Sandler was okay in the film. I quite liked his romantic comedy scenes with Michelle Monaghan’s character. However, her chracater didn’t have anything to do, except be the love interest.
• Kevin James was also in the film, as usual with Sandler films. His part was the most unbelievable one.
• Josh Gad tried to be the funny one but ended up being the stupid one. I really do prefer Gad as a voice actor.
• Peter Dinklage was the coolest part of the film and one of the reasons that I was excited about the movie (Game of Thrones, duh). His physical appearance was also great.
• Ashley Benson was another reason I wanted to see this film, because I am a Pretty Little Liars fan. However, I was really dispapointed. I waited the whole film for her to show up and she had only 3 scenes at the end. She didn’t even said a word, just stood there looking pretty.
• Denis Akiyama played Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man. I wish they would have let the actual creator of Pac-Man play himself because we do see him in the film. The real Tory Iwatani cameos as an Electric Dream Factory repairman.
• Sean Bean was also in the film for no reason whatsoever.
• Serena Williams and Martha Stewart make cameo appearances as themselves. Their cameos were the only ones that worked.
• Also, the film had a plethora of 80s stars appearing in alien messages That made the film seem more grounded, so good job.

Visuals

The visuals effect of the film looked really amazing. The way the video game figures moved and dissolved into tiny pixelated cubes was a wonderful feast for the eyes. The end credits design and the GAME OVER at the end of the film were also really appropriate additions to the overall theme of the film.

Directing 

The film was directed by Chris Columbus. I have seen a number of his films. He directed the Mrs. Doubtifre, the first two Home Alones and the first two Harry Potters as well as produced the Night at the Museum films as well as 2011’s Oscar nominated drama The Help. This probably won’t be his best movie (I mean, look at what he’s done), but I still believe that Pixels won’t be a stain on his resume, because the directing aspect of the film was really good. The action scenes looked exciting and interesting. Moreover, they looked realistic and that’s really hard to do while working with the green screen. And this movie needed a lot of green screen, I suppose.

All in all, Pixels was a fun film that exceeded my expectations, which, to be fair, were quite low to begin with. However, if you love video games and if you are a fan of the staring actors or if you just want to see whether Sandler still has what it takes to make a good comedy, go see this film. Bye!

Rate: 3.25/5

Trailer: Pixels trailer