Pixels

Dustin: 3 of 5 stars Nick: 2 of 5 stars Average: 2.5 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Dustin: In Pixels, man-boy Adam Sandler and President Kevin James do battle with alien space weapons modeled on 1980s arcade games. After aliens discover a pod sent to space with Earth culture and technology, they have interpreted the contents as a threat, and sent our 1980s pop culture back to Earth in weaponized form.

Nick: I remember the day I heard they were making a full-length feature out of a fantastic short film called Pixels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugV6cLgwomo). I was super excited, and years later it became an Adam Sandler vehicle and all my dreams came crashing to the floor. The jokes and characters are so juvenile I really wanted the aliens to win because they would be more interesting to follow if there happens to be a sequel, and plus I HATE Adam Sandler films. Also I believe Peter Dinklage’s character is based off Billy Mitchell from the documentary King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters, which was a very nice touch since Mitchell may be film’s greatest villain! See that movie instead of Pixels.

Dustin: When I first saw the trailer, I thought, What a great concept. Then they showed Adam Sandler and Kevin James, and I thought, Oh, fuck. Then I thought, I’ll give it a chance. Maybe Adam Sandler will go back to form, like Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison.

I gave this movie a lukewarm positive rating because I thought the pixelated video game aliens looked awesome, and those parts of the movie were good. The story lent itself to the use of CGI. The “plot” was perfunctory. When I saw Kevin James as the president, I thought, Yeah, right. I liked the supporting actors, like Peter Dinklage and that guy who is like the poor man’s Jonah Hill (remind me of his name).

Nick: Josh Gad, the voice of the snowman in Frozen.

Dustin: That’s right. When we saw Frozen before sneaking into Oldboy, I thought the snowman was voiced by Jonah Hill.

Anyway, Adam Sandler was the worst part of this movie. He just looked tired. He doesn’t have that raw energy he had on Saturday Night Live and his album What the Hell Happened to Me? At least this movie had good production value and it looked like some people were trying. But this would have been a better movie if Adam Sandler and Kevin James weren’t in it. Or were only supporting roles.

(Full disclosure: Once upon a time, I was a huge Adam Sandler fan. I liked his early comedies, despite their low-brow nature. I still like What the Hell Happened to Me?, even though one skit is an eight-minute fart joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUvKegVZuRA)

Nick: The only scene where I felt any joy was when our heroes had to be the ghosts to stop the Pac-Men from destroying the city. Beyond that scene I never had any fun, including the CGI from any particular scene. It didn’t work for me, especially in the first scene of Adam Sandler and the army facing off against Centipede. I never played the game, but I assume that the parts of the centipede that are shot burst with a blue flame or something. It didn’t look good to someone who doesn’t know the game. I wonder if non-gamers would feel that way about the whole movie. I recently have been going to a local arcade a lot and have become obsessed with Q*Bert, which I had never played before. What they did with Q at the end made me quite sad.

Dustin: I played Centipede quite a bit as a kid at La Pizza Cellar in Rockaway Beach, Missouri. I loved that game. But you bring up an interest point. Anyone old enough to have played that game is probably too mature for this movie. Even some young whippersnappers like yourself who never had a chance to play the game are too mature for it. The film’s target audience--boys ages 12 to 14--would have no idea what was going on.

Nick: It’s funny that Michelle Monaghan and Peter Dinklage are the two best actors in this film and they have the least amount of screen time. You would think being a better actor would get you the better role. Or you would hope, I guess. What Michelle’s character has to go through in this movie is the definition of horror. Her husband leaves her for a younger woman and she falls apart in front of Adam Sandler hiding in her closet on the floor drinking wine. Oh women… so fragile. And after hating Sandler for two-ish days, she seems to grow a liking to him, and then in another two-ish days shes in love with him. I need to rewatch What Women Want to understand her actions a little better, because maybe I don’t know what they want.

Dustin: I also liked the appearance of Toru Iwatani, the real-life creator of Pac-Man (speaking of casting). The Pac-Man sequence was featured heavily in the trailer, and it is probably the best part. But you’re right about Monaghan’s character arc. It is obvious from the get-go her and Sandler will end up together at the end, and their scenes together just feel like they were included in service of that end.

The most disappointing thing about this movie isn’t really Adam Sandler, just that they could have done better with the material.

Adam Sandler clearly knows how to raise money for a movie. I think as an artist, however, he has bowed out long ego. He should use his business acumen to be a producer and stay out of the creative process.

Nick: Crazy thing I just learned: it only cost $8 million more to make Pixels than Grown Ups 2.  How insane is that?! http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=sandlerdecline.htm

Instead of trying to make a good movie, they made a film that will make good money. Which it could have if they hired an imaginative director/writer and an exuberant cast, but this was a safer bet for the producers. Which is funny because it's actually not doing well at the box office. Maybe Sandler will stop getting projects he didn't create for himself! We can only hope.