Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Video game experts are recruited by the military to fight 1980s-era video game characters who've attacked New York.
Pixels has a genuinely fun and creative premise — aliens interpreting a 1980s arcade game time capsule as a declaration of war and attacking Earth using those game characters — but squanders it with a lazy, formulaic script and broad, lowest-common-denominator humor. The casting is serviceable at best; Adam Sandler coasts on his usual schtick, and the supporting cast (Kevin James as the President, Peter Dinklage mugging for the camera) are underutilized or misused. Cinematography and visual effects are a legitimate bright spot, with the pixelated destruction sequences being visually inventive and colorful. Novelty gets credit for the distinctive concept and the genuinely striking arcade-character-as-monster imagery, which is unlike most alien invasion films. The ending, however, is perfunctory and emotionally flat, resolving everything too neatly without any real stakes or payoff.