Eighties nostalgia is weaponized in Pixels, a light sci-fi comedy that sees unknown aliens send giant
arcade games to invade the earth. Why? Apparently they picked up some thirty-year-old
signals and they took it as a threat. The attacks start with an enormous Galaga
game raining destruction on an Air Force base in Guam, reducing everything in
sight to glowing piles of multicolored blocks. It’s clearly a crisis for bumbling
President Kevin James, who was once just a kid in an arcade cheering on
his good buddies in their quest to be champion gamers. Now he’s a buffoon no
one likes, with plummeting approval ratings. How he got to be president in the
first place is anyone’s guess. And now there are these aliens threatening to
destroy the planet. What follows is a nonsense adventure out to flatter every
nerd in the audience for merely recognizing the references.
James recruits a goofy and improbable ensemble to fight back
the aliens in elaborate large-scale replications of classic games. He finds his
old arcade pals – now an AV technician (Adam Sandler), a conspiracy nut (Josh
Gad), and a prisoner (Peter Dinklage, looking like Billy Mitchell) – and forces
them to train Marines in video game strategy. The gruff general (Brian Cox) is
hopelessly confused, but reluctantly lets a lieutenant (Michelle Monaghan) get
special tech prepared surprisingly quickly. Soon the dweebs and the military
have giant phallic laser guns blasting away at Space Invaders, Centipede, and
the like as aliens demand three contests, winner takes planet. If you already
find yourself asking questions like, “How?” or “Why?” or “Who cares?” this is
not your movie.
The nerds, we’re told repeatedly, are the only ones who know
how to play the games, and therefore the world’s only hope. This seems to me a
misunderstanding of video games’ popularity. You’d think a group of Marines
would know a thing or two about joystick-eye coordination, and could grasp the
basic strategy of these old games, especially since it boils down in practice
to shooting at large glowing objects. Plus, it sets up a dated nerds-rule/jocks-drool
underdog fight that doesn’t make sense in our world of unfortunately
male-dominated Silicon Valley and other bro-ish tech enclaves where the simple power
categories of dorks and sports have scrambled. But I suppose this isn’t exactly
the movie to go looking for logic or coherence. It doesn’t even bother to show
us the aliens behind the DayGlo lightshow attacks, expecting us to enjoy the sight
of it all while chuckling at its cast’s antics and not thinking about it too
much.
The movie’s idea of nerds is as old as the games they’re fighting. But the action is rather well done, like a lighthearted riff on
a Transformers plot structure in
which incomprehensible extraterrestrial conflict tears through some major
cities and their landmarks. I enjoyed seeing the vibrant geometric shapes
colliding with earthbound obstacles. At least it is action different from what
we usually see, collateral damage chaos smashing apart solid matter into bits
of glowing blocks. There’s some charm to seeing a towering Pac-Man chomping
through a maze of New York City streets, or cavernous red alien scaffolding
arranging itself into a King Kong-sized Donkey
Kong setup. But it goes on and on without feelings of real danger, and the
characters just aren’t funny or interesting enough to earn our investment.
Remaking a French short film by Patrick Jean, writers Tim
Herlihy and Timothy Dowling (frequent Sandler collaborators) create podgy connective
tissue for silly spectacle in the form of limp childish comedy and halfhearted
relationships. The jokes largely fall flat, without a sharp sense of
perspective or humor. We’re supposed to care if these guys earn validation
despite learning little more than that they’re good at thirty-year-old video
games. And it’s yet another movie where goofy guys stumble their way to
greatness while patient women stand next to the fun, scowling or smirking. This
one goes the extra mile, casting people like Jane Krakowski, Ashley Benson, and
Serena Williams (!) to show up in a few scenes and smile, like prizes to be won
or symbols to be displayed. Playing into pessimistic nerd culture inferiority
and resentment, the movie sets itself up as wish-fulfillment for people who
wish playing arcade games could be enough to 1.) earn a living, 2.) make you an
important public figure, and 3.) get you ladies to objectify.
So the human stakes are unconvincing and vaguely insulting.
But at least the zippy adventure moments largely work. It’s not an altogether
unpleasant experience, which most definitely cannot be said for most Sandler
comedies of late. The director here is Chris Columbus, whose work on the first
two Harry Potter films shows his
facility with bouncy effects work and convincing design. He has a competent eye
for faux-Spielberg awe and workmanlike entertainment, and proves once more that,
when given a director instead of an enabler, Sandler is a decent everyman. As a
schlub shooting 8-bit aliens, we can almost believe it. The problem is only
when he stands next to painfully wisecracking sidekicks, or when we’re asked to
care if he gets to woo the lady in uniform, win over her moppet, and get the
respect of the world. When the movie’s in motion, it goes down easily. But then
it stops, and there’s that hollow aftertaste.
