Pixels

(PG) ★★

Director: Chris Columbus.

Cast: Adam Sandler, Michelle Monaghan, Josh Gad, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, Brian Cox.

"Does anyone feel this is not only way too convenient but largely unnecessary?
I mean why the fuck do we have personalised number plates?"

PIXELS is based on a French short film and mimics one-third of a Futurama episode.

The short film was basically a two-minute special effects showreel that merged the old-school graphics of arcade games with the real world. The Futurama episode sees the slacker who has wasted his life playing computer games come to the rescue when computer games attack Earth.

In both cases, the ideas work well. As a short form display of computer-generated trickery, it’s two minutes of cleverness. In the animated world of Futurama where robots and aliens and pop culture irony are the norm, it makes perfect sense as a fun plot device.

Over close to two hours, with Adam Sandler and Kevin James leading the way, the ideas are not so fun or clever.

Sandler plays Sam Brenner, a former video game champion now in his mid-40s who sets up home entertainment equipment and whose best friend from childhood happens to be (I kid you not) the President of the United States of America (played by, and again I kid you not, Kevin James).

Brenner and fellow former game prodigy Ludlow Lamonsoff (Gad) are called upon by the President to help save the day when aliens attack Earth in the form of computer games, and along with gaming badboy Eddie “Fireblaster” Plant (Dinklage) they must face off against Pacman, Donkey Kong, and Centipede.

It’s an ‘80s geek dream come true – that hours of playing video games will prove not only useful, but useful in a save-the-world kind of way, making you the ultimate hero who also happens to get the girl. Ultimately that is one of the film’s few saving graces – it’s a very affectionate ode to the original titles of the computer game revolution and the skill it took to defeat them.

But largely, this is a clumsy big-budget mess that feels painfully forced. It’s continually stretching and straining to get all its Tetris blocks in a row. It doesn’t have a plot but instead has levels comprising different games. Except you don’t get to play the games. You get to sit there and watch Kevin James and Adam Sandler play them, which is even less fun. And they make lame jokes the whole time, and that just makes matters worse.

Such a level-based structure can work – Scott Pilgrim Vs The World pulls it off because it has style, heart, and deeper themes worked into it. Ditto for Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire. But Pixels has neither style, nor heart, nor anything vaguely resembling depth. Brennan’s relationship with Lieutenant Colonel Violet van Patten (Monaghan) is the film’s only attempt at anything resembling character development, but its flippant and ultimately redundant.

The lack of style falls at the feet of director Columbus – one of the blandest directors going around. Any kind of visual panache in the film has come directly from Patrick Jean's 2010 short film.

Aside from its obvious love of old school arcade games, there are few plusses to Pixels. The biggest is Gad, who gets all the best lines. Dinklage attempts to steal the show but falls short (no pun intended), while Monaghan and Cox are far better than this. Perversely, this is the best film James has been in since Hitch. But that’s not saying much.

There are a few laughs, but the one thing the movie has going for it is a broad appeal. There are tons of in-jokes and references that only people who lived through the ‘80s will understand and potentially get a kick out of (Max Headroom even makes an appearance, for Pete’s sake), and those people can probably take their kids, who will like the family-friendly bloodless pixelated violence, even if they don’t understand what a Frogger or a Pacman does.

But on the whole, Pixels is an idea that worked better in other formats – none of which are a movie connected to Adam Sandler and Kevin James.