Pixels

Pixels (12A)

USA 2015 106 minutes Dir: Chris Columbus Cast: Adam Sandler, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, Brian Cox

How best to express the dead-eyed awfulness of Adam Sandler vehicle Pixels, a movie so underwhelming you will in fact be harbouring a desire to get pixelated in your local boozer? Here are the five levels of the deadening Pixels experience.

Level One: It Begins…

The start of any new video game is a journey fraught with the potential for anger and disappointment – and the same sentiment applies to the majority of Adam Sandler’s output these days. Hardly surprising when one considers such calamitous efforts from his Happy Madison stable like That’s My Boy, Jack and Jill and Blended. What makes it frustrating is that he’s shown potential in the past – Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer are legitimately funny and he’s shown dramatic chops in Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterpiece Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish and Reign Over Me.

The opening sequence of Pixels actually promises reasonably good things, whisking us back to the arcade-heady heyday of 1982 as the 12-year-old incarnation of Sandler’s character Brenner proves himself a whiz at Galaga but is beaten during a Donkey Kong-off by smug Eddie (later to be played by Peter Dinklage). The soundtrack’s predictable but the tone is innocent, the attention to detail is nice and it would be a hard soul not to feel a nostalgic pang at the sight of all those arcade machines. A decent user experience is promised…

Level Two: Utter Bullshit

… Sadly, after about 10 minutes, it’s clear that the experience of making it through Pixels will be as trying as an attempt to set a record on Space Invaders with one hand tied behind your back. Brenner is now grown up, played by Sandler, and his former childhood buddy Cooper is now the President of the USA. Yes, really. Never mind he’s played by the yawning comic vacuum that is Kevin James. The movie’s peculiarly nonchalant treatment of the friendship between Sandler’s schlubby manchild and the most powerful man in the world (not that he behaves like it) is one of the worst executed plot developments in recent movie history. The movie even proposes that Sandler can stroll into the Oval Office and sit in Prezzie’s chair without one single guard being present. No.

Level Three: Girl Alert

So it turns out that back in the film’s 1982 prologue, NASA sent footage of people playing video games into space (although we never actually see that happen on screen, so as a storytelling device it’s beyond poor). This has been interpreted by an alien race as an act of war and they’ve sent massive versions of beloved arcade game characters to Earth who proceed to reduce people and landmarks to Tetris-style glowing blocks. But the actual alien is actress Michelle Monaghan as Violet, who according to Sandler is the film’s real mystery: an attractive woman with her own brain and a successful job.

Level Four: London Calling

‘Cor blimey guv’nor. The aliens choose to rock up in the capital’s Hyde Park, where for no reason at all Sean Bean plays a gruff northern SAS operative and an assorted cast of Hollyoaks rejects gather around delivering rhyming slang. But the moment that will have you putting your foot through the seat in front is the presence of the UK Prime Minister who utters spiffing, tally-ho clichés in the manner of Biggles and elicits looks of bafflement from James’ President. Remember when you got 99% of the way through that Sonic level and then promptly fell into a spiked pit? It’s that annoying.

Level Five: The End of All Things

After a great deal of vacuous nonsense including a showdown with Pac-Man, limp wannabe romance between Sandler and Monaghan (which will have the youngsters screaming with boredom) and a Peter Dinklage mullet that deserves its own credit (Q*Bert also shows up), the movie concludes with a final battle against Brenner’s nemesis, Donkey Kong. You see, it’s not just a crass Sandler vehicle disguised as retro eighties nostalgia. It’s… Actually, who are we kidding? That’s exactly what it is. Josh Gad’s ear-gratingly irritating character Ludlow is even ‘rewarded’ with his own nubile, blond, pixelated female creation as a result of his help in the final battle. Frozen 2 can’t come soon enough, Josh.

Game over.