Pixels

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I should have known better than to get my hopes up.  Mediocrity is as good as we have gotten from Adam Sandler and Kevin James over the last five years plus, and even that “height” has been rarely obtained.  But then the Pixels trailer hit and tapped into that latent 80s kid vibe that Wreck-It-Ralph and Ready Player One both nailed, and I suddenly had this irrational hope that this movie would make me feel the same way, despite who was behind it.

But this movie about a world threatened by 80s videogames is not a disaster movie; it’s just a disaster.  There are a few laughs but it’s awful to see how badly the movie wasted its concept.  This could have, and should have, been something fun.  It was a great summer movie idea.   Instead, 95% of the funny parts are in the three minute trailer.  They got me a few other times with stupid stuff but mainly I was just thinking about how this seemed to have all been thrown together in a week, and how much the writers must have hated the source material to not even try to have any fun with it (really, it’s like they didn’t even watch a Wreck-It-Ralph trailer, let alone the movie).

To say much more would be to give the movie too much of my energy, so I’ll just paraphrase Billy Madison’s high school principal and say I am now dumber for having watched this movie, I award Pixels three 80s videogame points out of ten, and may god have mercy on Adam Sandler’s soul.

17 thoughts on “Pixels”

  1. Jay

    Wow. I am tip-toeing out of the room right now because I have rarely seen you so incensed, Sean. Great review, though – wish I could say I disagree, but I don’t.

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  3. Carrie Rubin

    Yeah, I’m having a hard time getting excited about this one. I doubt I’ll see it. My teen sons might go if they’re bored, but they have high standards for movies (higher than me; where did I go wrong?…) so I doubt it.

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  4. Salty Popcorn

    Hahahaha – I think my words at the trailer were “the first Sandler movie trailer I have been excited about since Big Daddy” – your review continues its decimation by critics – wonder if they will direct to video it in Australia now – time will tell but I will avoid the hell out of it 🙂

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  7. Courtney Small

    I have not seen a single positive review for this film. The sad thing is that Pixels still made decent money at the box office, which means Sandler will keep swimming in this tired realm of comedy rather than tackling something different (e.g. more indie minded films).

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    1. seanathant Post author

      You are exactly right. He keeps being rewarded for the same stuff so he keeps doing it. Which is a shame because a movie like Punch Drunk Love shows us how great it can be when Adam Sandler puts himself in the right hands.

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  9. Christopher

    I had high hopes (which caused my spouse to look at me in horror and say, “REALLY?”), but I’m glad to have my worst fears confirmed before I spent the money or the time. Thank you for the review, but thank you even more for making it so concise. In fact the review is like the film’s trailer itself: short and genuinely entertaining, and it gives us all we could possibly need from “Pixels”.
    Now I feel a strange need to rewatch “The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters”.

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