Pixels

Dir: Chris Columbus

2015

**

Pixels did quite well at the box office but the overall consensus suggests that it is one of the big stinkers of 2015. I agree that it isn't very good, however, there are a few qualities about it that I do admire. It's based on a neat little short film that French director Patrick Jean made in 2010 whereby outdated technology, in the form of old computer games, rebels at being labelled obsolete. There isn't much of a story to it, just really clever ideas, special effects and a darkly comic conclusion. It's a bit like a music video without the music. How the perfectly simple idea went from that to 2015's feature length version I have no idea. Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling's version sees Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Josh Gad as friends who once competed in a Gaming competition in 1982. At this competition/convention, a videotape of the recorded game-play was sent into space in a time-capsule. Fast forward thirty-three years, we find out that Adam Sandler installs home-theatre systems, Josh Gad is a conspiracy theorist and Kevin James is President of the United States. When aliens attack the planet in the form of old computer games, we learn that said aliens found the time-capsule and mistook the recorded game-play as a declaration of war. The three of them take it upon themselves to take on the aliens, seeing as they are the only ones who seem to possess the skill of game pattern recognition. It's as contrived as it sounds. Joining the team are Michelle Monaghan as a Lieutenant Colonel Head of technology. Adam Sandler meets her early on in the film in a scene that is as long as it is cringe-worthy, in said scene Sandler installs an entertainment system for her son. Why such a high-ranking Lieutenant Colonel and head of technology for the entire country would need someone to install relatively simple technology or indeed grant access to a handy man to her home, isn't worth thinking about. She also has a pointless and unexplained cyborg working for her. It's all fairly stupid stuff. The script is awful, really awful and the story is pretty dumb too. It is interesting that Seth Gorden was attached to the project at one point because Peter Dinklage's character is basically Billy Mitchell, star of his documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It's never funny, the special effects aren't that great (the original short is better) and the setup is badly put together, even though I like the overall idea. The scene in London was particularly tiresome as they got everything about it wrong, even the stereotypes (shame on you Sean Bean). I didn't like it. So why on earth have I given it a two star rating instead of a single star? Simply because it contains what is probably my favourite scene of any 2015 film. When the aliens take the form of a giant Pac-Man in New York, the three computer geeks are joined by a fourth team member to act as the ghost who chase him (the ghosts being Mini-coopers with 'alien technology' attached to them). That fourth member is none other than Toru Iwatani, famous games developer and creator of Pac-Mac. Makes sense. His cameo is priceless, just when they reach Pac-Man and are close enough to kill him, Mr Iwatani pleads with his 'son' to behave himself, as he was created 'for good' and to 'make the world happy'. Pac-Man bites his arm off. It's brilliant. Everything else is horrible. HORR-I-BLE. Worst film, best scene, strange but it happens.