Pixels ** (2015, Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, Brian Cox, Michelle Monaghan, Sean Bean) – Movie Review

Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad star as Sam Brenner, Will Cooper, Ludlow Lamonsoff, and Eddie ‘The Fire Blaster’ Plant, who played classic arcade video games as teenagers.

In 2015 they have to use their skills to try to save the world from aliens, who attack the Earth in the form of the video game characters after mistaking video feeds of them as a declaration of war.

Relying on Eighties nostalgia and smart-looking visuals rather than plot or gags, this ode to lost Eighties youth is a terribly dull movie. At best, it’s a painless but pointless time-passer.

Sandler, James and Gad manage to seem three really unfunny guys struggling to raise laughs here. And into the mix comes Dinklage’s spectacularly unfunny Eddie and Brian Cox’s decidedly unamusing Admiral Porter. So there are not many laughs then.

But the movie stops entirely for a sentimental middle-aged romance between Sandler’s Brenner and Michelle Monaghan’s Violet, which is a further downside of director Chris Columbus’s weary movie. But then, just when things are going really ploddingly, along comes Sean Bean as SAS Officer Corporal Hill and then Fiona Shaw as the Prime Minister.

Two young blokes coming out of the Empire IMAX cinema behind me:

First bloke: ‘Well, it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d thought.’

Second bloke: ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t have wanted to have paid for it.’

First bloke: ‘No, and I would recommend it to anyone either.’

Yet, to be kind, after a disappointing performance in the States, taking $58million, Pixels is perhaps a little better than you might think or advance word from America suggested. I guess it could charm those nostalgic middle-agers whose golden era for arcade games was in the early Eighties.

By the way, the day Kevin James actually becomes US President and Fiona Shaw becomes Prime Minister is the day I take a spaceshot to Jupiter. And, meanwhile, now I’m worried about the Ghostbusters reboot.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2805

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