Review of Pixels (2010) by Harry W — 02 Apr 2016

Though Adam Sandler films consistently prove to be on a rapid decline, the presence of Kevin James and Peter Dinklage in a big-budget spectacle sounded like it might have guilty pleasure potential.

Video game film adaptations have never once achieved greatness in the experience of me, countless critics and fans of the source material. The one exception is Wreck-It Ralph (2012) in which original source material was pumped into familiar fame genres for a singular narrative which also made clever pop culture references. Pixels attempts to capitalise on the success of that in a live-action context and stand out as an Adam Sandler vehicle at the same time. As expected, it crashes and burns by adhering to both these limitations. The entire plot in Pixels is plagiarised from the Futurama (1999-2013) episode "Anthology of Interest II" in a sequence titled "Raiders of the Lost Arcade" where Fry wishes to see life being more like a video game which results in the US military going to combat with the creatures of the planet Nintendu 64. What worked as a third of a 20-minute episode of a popular animated series is stretched into a 106 minute science fiction comedy. Perhaps the word to emphasise there is not comedy, but fiction. Fiction in the sense that the idea of any comedy being present in Pixels is purely fictional.

Even without the efforts of the actors, the screenplay in Pixels is terrible. Already using a story which has been told way better in its 2 minute source material and the Futurama episode, the dialogue in Pixels does no favours for anyone because of how it adheres so heavily to the most lowbrow manner of speaking and relying more on visual aids to crack jokes than any clever script quips. One of the lines in the film is "I don't see it, but you sure as hell do". This is the first major sign that Tim Herilhy and Timothy Dowling don't have an idea of realistic dialogue. It might be silly to complain about unrealistic dialogue in a film about characters at war with video game characters, but it just makes the cringe-factor of Pixels so much heavier than it already was.

Pixels attempts to skate on by with the status of being a stylish spectacle, but there are not enough visual effects in the world to hide a script so mundane and unfunny in a film supposed to be a comedy. Skyrocketing to $88 million, Pixels' entire budget is spent on visuals and high profile cast members. The latter appears to be a big mistake, but I'll admit I found moments of visual flair in the film. During the action moments of Pixels the scale of the film feels large thanks to the variation in cinematography techniques while the visual effects manage to capture a detailed look for the video game characters yet still have enough colour to boast a cartoonish appeal. It's just a shame how much blatant reliance Chris Colombus puts on this. And being another film caught onto the ludicrous 3D trend, Pixels tries to add another gimmick to a film which is already walking a thin line with multiple that it uses to disguise the lack of a plot. As usual, the 3D adds nothing. This starts when pixels begin flying at the screen after antagonists have been defeated, and the rest of the film proves that this is the only thing Chris Colombus knows how to use it for. If Pixels isn't an obvious sign that the trend is a dead and wasted one, then there is something clearly wrong with Hollywood. But since they produced Pixels in the first place we already knew that.

But looking past all that, I carried a mild hope that maybe someone in the cast would add at least a modicum of joy to the experience. It often pains me to be this optimistic, and Pixels reminds me that I really shouldn't be.

Adam Sandler churns his way through a remorselessly artificial script with no hint of the comic charisma he had once upon a time. As if he churned out the last of his over-the-top energy in the Golden Raspberry Award winning That's My Boy (2012), he has started going in the complete opposite direction as signified most notably by the box-office bomb The Cobbler (2014). His voice tone is terribly melancholic as if he is suffering from some major bout of depression and wants everyone to be reminded of it every second of the day, clearly not the kind of spirit that Pixel's energetic intentions carry. It looks like it's a painful experience for him to be in the role, and given how much viewers have to suffer in actually watching the film it would make sense to say that his experience making it was worse. But either way, we're the ones that have to keep paying to support his career and Pixels is yet another sign that we really shouldn't be. Pixels is another reminder of how far in the past Adam Sandler's glory days are buried and that it's where his career will remain from now on, so the fact that he's still getting such large financing for his films is an enigma. Adam Sandler is at some of his all-time worst in Pixels, simply because he doesn't care to put any life in the role.

Pixels presents one of the rare cases in recent years where Adam Sandler is not the worst actor to have a prominent role in one of his vehicles. The status of accomplished comic actor going into the most cringe worthy territory is maintained by Josh Gad. I can't remember the time I found someone as painfully unfunny as Josh Gad, all I can say is that he is an actor who should not be allowed to speak. It's a shame that the silent film era is over because it's one of the few situations I might tolerate an actor whose voice is such a curse to humanity. In never thought I'd say that about the voice of Olaf from Frozen, but his efforts in Pixels are precisely that poor. When Sean Bean says "I don't want to hear another words out of you" to Josh Gad, I'm sure he speaks for most viewers, the same way I did every time I shouted "Shut the f*ck up, Josh!" as a response to every lame joke he spurted out of his mouth. Josh Gad personally makes a guarantee that every joke is as juvenile as possible with the most minimal of any charismatic sensibility. I proudly admit that I wanted to watch Josh Gad die at the hands of Pac-Man in Pixels and was saddened more than anything else when it did not happen. I could drag this on and on, but to summarise my newfound disdain for Josh Gad all I can say is that he will always be an actor I cite as cringe-worthy for Pixels and that I am ecstatic at the fact that he earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actor.

Peter Dinklage is an actor too talented to be starring is an Adam Sandler film. You can tell he has to force himself through the role because he hasn't given a thin performance this forced since Underdog (2007). His over the top attitude occasionally has the flair of heavyset horror movie actors from the 1930's through to the 1950's which has irony to it considering his small stature, but the blatant repetition in it and the fact that Peter Dinklage is really beneath himself in Pixels makes it more difficult to swallow. Of all the major actors to have significant involvement in the film, I'll admit that Peter Dinklage is at least the most passionate about putting any energy into the material simply because he is going so heavily against type that he is parodying himself, even if the result is absolutely ridiculous. Andrew Bambridge's pretentious mimicry of the same character is annoying simply because the character is too stereotypical and lacks the gimmick of being Peter Dinklage in the first place. Peter Dinklage must have gotten a huge paycheck out of Pixels because he sold his talents for material which had no use wasting his time, but there is still only a small modicum of enjoyment that comes from the final product.

Kevin James has little to do in Pixels. He is not one of the characters directly involved in the video game combat but instead is off in his own side plot as the illiterate president of the United States. However the hell he got voted in, he only becomes prominent towards the end of the film despite being very arbitrary for the bigger picture. Quite frankly the entire point of giving Kevin James a role in Pixels hardly makes any sense whatsoever, but given the catastrophic status of the performances and characters around him he remains a genial presence simply due to his foolish nature and natural energy. As a long-running fan of his I'll admit that I enjoyed parts of his performance, even it is is far from any of his greater work.

Pixels has decent production values, but the excess of reliance on the overblown visuals fails to hide the sadly pedestrian script and painfully awkward performances in this 106-minute adaptation of a 2-minute short film.