Movie Review-Pixels

In Pixels Adam Sandler, Kevin James and Josh Gad are three nerd buddies who spent their formative years in the arcade playing video games and saving the world from aliens. However; after a video of kids playing video games in the 80’s is sent into space as part of a time capsule, they end up defending the world for real from aliens who take the video games as a serious challenge to war. In their current lives Sandler (Brenner) works as a home audio/video installer, Josh Gad (Ludlow) is a paranoid introvert who still lives with his grandma and Kevin James (Cooper) is the president of the United States. So when space aliens, in the form of 1980’s video games, attack the earth President Cooper calls on his childhood friends to help him safe the world.  

Pixels is light on story line but it’s heavy on special effects and action. The 1980’s video games come to life on the big screen and it’s enough to keep you engaged as if your were at an old school arcade feeding quarters into the machines. The movie will definitely bring back fond memories for “Gamers” who spend Saturday afternoons in the 80’s feeding the machines quarter after quarter from your mom’s laundry mat money stash. 

Peter Dinklage played my favorite part in the movie. He’s plays a diminutive gamer with a huge ego. He was Sandler’s rival in the old days, beating him at Donkey Kong at the first ever World Video Game Championships. He’s since fallen on hard times and his criminal ways have landed him in prison. So President Cooper (Kevin James) gets him out of jail to join his team of world defenders. His outrageous demands to join up are part of what gets the movie a PG-13 rating. (Look for a few major cameo appearances in the movie as well).

Pixels is a fun summertime move. It has a run time of 105 minutes and most of that time you’ll find yourself laughing. On my “Hollywood Popcorn Scale” I rate it a LARGE.