From Rotten Tomatoes:
MOVIE INFO
As kids in the 1980s, Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), Will Cooper (Kevin James), Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad), and Eddie "The Fire Blaster" Plant (Peter Dinklage) saved the world thousands of times - at 25 cents a game in the video arcades. Now, they're going to have to do it for real. In Pixels, when intergalactic aliens discover video feeds of classic arcade games and misinterpret them as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth, using the video games as the models for their assaults -- and now-U.S. President Cooper must call on his old-school arcade friends to save the world from being destroyed by PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Centipede, and Space Invaders. Joining them is Lt. Col. Violet Van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), a specialist supplying the arcaders with unique weapons to fight the aliens.(C) Sony
As kids in the 1980s, Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), Will Cooper (Kevin James), Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad), and Eddie "The Fire Blaster" Plant (Peter Dinklage) saved the world thousands of times - at 25 cents a game in the video arcades. Now, they're going to have to do it for real. In Pixels, when intergalactic aliens discover video feeds of classic arcade games and misinterpret them as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth, using the video games as the models for their assaults -- and now-U.S. President Cooper must call on his old-school arcade friends to save the world from being destroyed by PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Centipede, and Space Invaders. Joining them is Lt. Col. Violet Van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), a specialist supplying the arcaders with unique weapons to fight the aliens.(C) Sony
Rating: PG-13 (for some language and suggestive comments)
Directed By: Chris Columbus
In Theaters: Jul 24, 2015 Wide
On DVD: Oct 12, 2015
US Box Office: $57.7M
Runtime: 1 hr. 46 min.
Sony Pictures - Official Site
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So another movie where Adam Sandler gets to reference his love for the 80's...
So when this movie first started making the rounds it sounded interesting, then I remembered that there was a Futurama episode with the exact same story which appeared in the episode title Anthology of Interest II from Season 3 of the series which aired on January 6, 2002. Also I just read that this movie was actually an adaptation of a short film by Patrick Jean also called Pixels which was released in 2010.
And here's Patrick Jean's short film Pixels:
So basically this movie is not at all original, all they've done is taken from these two and expanded it to include Adam Sandler, a bunch of his pals and a love interest. Basically think of any other Adam Sandler movie and mash it up with that episode from Futurama and Patrick Jean's Pixels, and there you go. Also as with recent Adam Sandler movies expect the same everything too.
It would have been cooler if there were more of those guys invading the earth. ©Columbia Pictures
Want to gauge what sort of humor you'll be getting? Kevin James plays his buddy Will Cooper who was his sidekick as a child but all grown up is the President of the United States. That's the sort of humor you can expect.
That man there plays the President of the United States of America. A big promotion from Mall Cop... ©Columbia Pictures
So now you know that it isn't exactly original either in terms of the story or even in the visuals for it. And you know what kind of humor, what kind of jokes you'll be getting, so what's left? Very little else actually.
Q*bert is cute and all but still not enough to keep you entertained. ©Columbia Pictures
OK SO BEFORE YOU CONTINUE AND IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE LET ME TELL YOU THAT FROM THIS POINT ON THERE WILL BE MORE SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler) was supposed to be a champion arcade gamer but gets beaten at the last moment by Eddie Plant (Peter Dinklage) which destroys his confidence so much that he ends up a recently divorced adult who's day job is to install home entertainment systems at other peoples homes. His sidekick friend is now the nation's President who is himself in trouble at the popularity polls for being an ineffectual and somewhat dimwitted leader. They both find themselves in a position to change their fortunes as it were when earth is attacked by aliens who interpret a nasa recording of 80's arcade games as a threat to their existence and their answer to said threat is to emulate what they saw in those recordings to attack earth. When they do Mr President enlists Sam's help and another acquaintance named Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad) who is a conspiracy theorist who discovered the aliens hidden message to earth while recording a TV show. In between all the alien attacks and the nerds having to prove themselves to everyone else Sam falls for Lieutenant Colonel Violet van Patten (Michelle Monaghan) a military research scientist who helps develop the weapons used to fight the aliens. Also when things get tough they get Eddie Plant to help them. Later during the final epic fight with the aliens Sam discovers that Eddie cheated when he beat him all those years ago at the arcade championship which boosts his self-confidence and helps him beat the aliens.
The end.
This doesn't happen often enough to Josh Gad. ©Columbia Pictures
So how good can a movie that isn't all that original be?
Not all that good. Pixels has been out a while now and I tend to agree with most of the reviews. This movie is mediocre fare. It's so much of the same that you get from any other Adam Sandler or Kevin James movie. You'll get a few chuckles, maybe a few laughs but you won't want to watch it again for a long while and even when you do it'll probably be because you were surfing through the channels and can't figure out want to watch and sort of settled with watching this one. It's that sort of movie.
This big guy is the final boss in the movie and it was pretty cool to watch him but all you get instead is Adam Sandler jumping around. ©Columbia Pictures
If anything this movie is just another of Adam Sandler's love of the 80's personified on film. The 80's music is there, the arcade games of course, the opening scene is Sam and Will back in the 80's visiting their towns first arcade store, there's even Josh Gad hamming it up on stage singing a song from the 80's and of course Peter Dinklage character is still stuck in the 80's mullet and all.
Was looking forward to watching Peter Dinklage but then was disappointed with the role he got. ©Columbia Pictures
The story is predictable, the dialogue uninspired, the acting forgettable. The only fun things in this movie are the non-human characters. It was sort of fun and very cool to watch all those games from the 80's on the big screen. And the way they were visually designed to look real and yet still in all their pixellated 8-bit glory was really cool. But cool visuals don't make a good movie.
Poor Taj Mahal got thrashed too. They wanted to thrash the Great Wall but were afraid the Chinese audience wouldn't find it funny. ©Columbia Pictures
The critics panned this movie and looking at sites like Rotten Tomatoes it would seem that quite a lot of viewers share their opinion. I share it too. I'm giving this movie a 2.2 out of 5. I'm hoping the next movie I watch doesn't disappoint as much as the last couple I've seen...
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