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#93 - Pixels
Chris Columbus, 2015
When an alien race decides to attack Earth by taking on the form of old videogame characters, a handful of middle-aged videogame champions are assembled to fight them.
On paper, Pixels involves a premise that theoretically sounds like it could provide the backbone for an uncomplicated but fun summer blockbuster. Aliens invade Earth using real-life versions of videogame characters to carry out their diabolical will? I can work with that, and there are the occasional moments throughout Pixels where it seems like it might have actually made good on such a concept. Unfortunately, even a premise like this can be undermined so severely that it scuppers the finished film's chances of actually being good or even decent. The most obvious culprit at work seems to be none other than Adam Sandler, whose appearance as the film's nominal hero is far and away the biggest red flag that this film could possibly raise. Sandler's character starts off the film as a young videogame champion before a crucial defeat apparently leads to him being a directionless tech support guy in his middle age. However, when a space probe full of 1980s videogame footage is intercepted by an alien race (who naturally interpret it as a declaration of war), it's up to Sandler and a motley collection of individuals to save the day. This includes Sandler's buffoonish best friend (Kevin James) who has since become the U.S. President, another old friend (Josh Gad) who deals in conspiracy theories and obsessing over fictional warrior women, Sandler's insufferable gamer rival (Peter Dinklage) who beat him at the original championship, and a military advisor (Michelle Monaghan) who Sandler first encounters during one especially awkward TV-installing appointment.
The biggest reason why I have trouble even remotely enjoying Pixels does stem from Sandler and his reputation for phoning in many of his recent comedies; here, he mumbles his way through playing one extremely disagreeable excuse for a protagonist who lacks the charm necessary to get away with a variety of reprehensible (or just plain irritating) actions. Gad proves just as insufferable as a histrionic incarnation of many a bad geek stereotype, while the nicest thing that you can say about James is that his extremely flat yet bumbling performance does little to inspire actual hatred. Monaghan seems especially wasted in a thankless role where her plot-advancing status as a highly intelligent scientific researcher still comes second to her status as Sandler's love interest whose acidic exchanges with him do not hint at any of the intended romantic tension. Dinklage is the closest thing that this film comes to having a highlight. He plays the sort of arrogant (if not necessarily villainous) snotwad that the audience is supposed to boo and hiss as he butts heads with the hero. However, when your hero is a middle-aged slob whose response to being rejected by a woman is to insist that geeks make for better kissers because "[they] appreciate it more", then it's hard to take much pleasure in any of Dinklage's comeuppances. Unlike the others, he seems to be having fun chewing the scenery (and isn't annoying about it like Gad tends to be). Rounding out the cast are Brian Cox and Sean Bean as a pair of stereotypically gruff military skeptics who exist only to generate the most ephemeral of false conflicts against our scrappy geek heroes, yet they still provide two of the most compelling characters in the film.
I can understand that Pixels is not meant to be taken too seriously. It does play out as a pastiche of many different sci-fi and disaster tropes, many of which are ripe for both satire and parody thanks in no small part to the especially fantastic inclusion of retro videogame characters. Unfortunately, it is very clear that both the execution isn't remotely up to the task. There are quite a few ways in which this high concept could have played out that would have made the most of both the subject matter and its associated themes of both nostalgia and technology. In the film we get, it's little more than an excuse to string together a bunch of flashy, nonsensical set-pieces that admittedly look like they're done with a degree of technical competence but frequently threaten one's suspension of disbelief way too much even for a film like this. Much of that is down to the fact that the film builds one especially improbable underdog narrative around a group of heroes that consists primarily of out-of-shape, middle-aged civilians whose mastery of thirty-year-old arcade games obviously translates into them being better marksmen or stunt-drivers than any actual soldiers. Such an absurd display of shallow wish-fulfillment for self-identifying geeks is still preferable to the film's attempts to graft any sort of romantic elements onto the proceedings. The least objectionable pairing involves James complaining about his marital strife with a spouse (Jane Krakowski) who is only ever seen being warm and supportive towards him; compared to the other sub-plots involving embittered losers, delusional nerds, and celebrity threesomes, James' romantic arc is practically progressive simply because it's so under-developed.
It's one thing for a bad movie to have no hope whatsoever of being good, but Pixels dangles its wasted potential in front of your face so frequently that it will definitely test your patience from start to finish. It can't seem to make up its mind as to whether or not it's celebrating videogames or condemning them, so it's hard to take any pleasure in its various nods to gaming culture due to how condescending they tend to feel (especially in one scene where Sandler lazily criticises new videogames for not being anything like the ones he grew up playing). I can pick apart the various logical inconsistencies and trite clichés as well as anybody, but I'd be willing to let them slide if the film actually gave me something I could cling to and enjoy. Unfortunately, that is not possible as the film instead gives us a poorly-developed collection of characters. Character development in this film is so backwards that characters who get the least amount of development tend to be the easiest ones to tolerate. Sandler himself may be low-hanging fruit, but I can't imagine anyone else making his character any harder to like (or easier to dislike, for that matter). Meanwhile, Dinklage's enjoyably hammy approach is all but cancelled out by Gad's irritatingly hammy approach - James and Monaghan barely deserve comment. With these leads, the film's intention of providing a light-hearted action-comedy goes out the window pretty quickly as the film trades on everything from impotent insults to unapologetic sexism in its (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to get some laughs.
Chris Columbus, 2015
When an alien race decides to attack Earth by taking on the form of old videogame characters, a handful of middle-aged videogame champions are assembled to fight them.
On paper, Pixels involves a premise that theoretically sounds like it could provide the backbone for an uncomplicated but fun summer blockbuster. Aliens invade Earth using real-life versions of videogame characters to carry out their diabolical will? I can work with that, and there are the occasional moments throughout Pixels where it seems like it might have actually made good on such a concept. Unfortunately, even a premise like this can be undermined so severely that it scuppers the finished film's chances of actually being good or even decent. The most obvious culprit at work seems to be none other than Adam Sandler, whose appearance as the film's nominal hero is far and away the biggest red flag that this film could possibly raise. Sandler's character starts off the film as a young videogame champion before a crucial defeat apparently leads to him being a directionless tech support guy in his middle age. However, when a space probe full of 1980s videogame footage is intercepted by an alien race (who naturally interpret it as a declaration of war), it's up to Sandler and a motley collection of individuals to save the day. This includes Sandler's buffoonish best friend (Kevin James) who has since become the U.S. President, another old friend (Josh Gad) who deals in conspiracy theories and obsessing over fictional warrior women, Sandler's insufferable gamer rival (Peter Dinklage) who beat him at the original championship, and a military advisor (Michelle Monaghan) who Sandler first encounters during one especially awkward TV-installing appointment.
The biggest reason why I have trouble even remotely enjoying Pixels does stem from Sandler and his reputation for phoning in many of his recent comedies; here, he mumbles his way through playing one extremely disagreeable excuse for a protagonist who lacks the charm necessary to get away with a variety of reprehensible (or just plain irritating) actions. Gad proves just as insufferable as a histrionic incarnation of many a bad geek stereotype, while the nicest thing that you can say about James is that his extremely flat yet bumbling performance does little to inspire actual hatred. Monaghan seems especially wasted in a thankless role where her plot-advancing status as a highly intelligent scientific researcher still comes second to her status as Sandler's love interest whose acidic exchanges with him do not hint at any of the intended romantic tension. Dinklage is the closest thing that this film comes to having a highlight. He plays the sort of arrogant (if not necessarily villainous) snotwad that the audience is supposed to boo and hiss as he butts heads with the hero. However, when your hero is a middle-aged slob whose response to being rejected by a woman is to insist that geeks make for better kissers because "[they] appreciate it more", then it's hard to take much pleasure in any of Dinklage's comeuppances. Unlike the others, he seems to be having fun chewing the scenery (and isn't annoying about it like Gad tends to be). Rounding out the cast are Brian Cox and Sean Bean as a pair of stereotypically gruff military skeptics who exist only to generate the most ephemeral of false conflicts against our scrappy geek heroes, yet they still provide two of the most compelling characters in the film.
I can understand that Pixels is not meant to be taken too seriously. It does play out as a pastiche of many different sci-fi and disaster tropes, many of which are ripe for both satire and parody thanks in no small part to the especially fantastic inclusion of retro videogame characters. Unfortunately, it is very clear that both the execution isn't remotely up to the task. There are quite a few ways in which this high concept could have played out that would have made the most of both the subject matter and its associated themes of both nostalgia and technology. In the film we get, it's little more than an excuse to string together a bunch of flashy, nonsensical set-pieces that admittedly look like they're done with a degree of technical competence but frequently threaten one's suspension of disbelief way too much even for a film like this. Much of that is down to the fact that the film builds one especially improbable underdog narrative around a group of heroes that consists primarily of out-of-shape, middle-aged civilians whose mastery of thirty-year-old arcade games obviously translates into them being better marksmen or stunt-drivers than any actual soldiers. Such an absurd display of shallow wish-fulfillment for self-identifying geeks is still preferable to the film's attempts to graft any sort of romantic elements onto the proceedings. The least objectionable pairing involves James complaining about his marital strife with a spouse (Jane Krakowski) who is only ever seen being warm and supportive towards him; compared to the other sub-plots involving embittered losers, delusional nerds, and celebrity threesomes, James' romantic arc is practically progressive simply because it's so under-developed.
It's one thing for a bad movie to have no hope whatsoever of being good, but Pixels dangles its wasted potential in front of your face so frequently that it will definitely test your patience from start to finish. It can't seem to make up its mind as to whether or not it's celebrating videogames or condemning them, so it's hard to take any pleasure in its various nods to gaming culture due to how condescending they tend to feel (especially in one scene where Sandler lazily criticises new videogames for not being anything like the ones he grew up playing). I can pick apart the various logical inconsistencies and trite clichés as well as anybody, but I'd be willing to let them slide if the film actually gave me something I could cling to and enjoy. Unfortunately, that is not possible as the film instead gives us a poorly-developed collection of characters. Character development in this film is so backwards that characters who get the least amount of development tend to be the easiest ones to tolerate. Sandler himself may be low-hanging fruit, but I can't imagine anyone else making his character any harder to like (or easier to dislike, for that matter). Meanwhile, Dinklage's enjoyably hammy approach is all but cancelled out by Gad's irritatingly hammy approach - James and Monaghan barely deserve comment. With these leads, the film's intention of providing a light-hearted action-comedy goes out the window pretty quickly as the film trades on everything from impotent insults to unapologetic sexism in its (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to get some laughs.