Pixels (2015)

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Hijinx ensue when aliens attack Earth with virtual armies of coin-op video game characters.

I had to take the Pail to see this one.

[Edgy MD]

Wow. This got some of the most vicious reviews I've seen in a while.

[Ceetar]

Edgy MD wrote: Wow. This got some of the most vicious reviews I've seen in a while.

people turned on Adam Sandler pretty hard it feels like.

This intrigued me, probably for nostalgia. Actually any good?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Sandler was probably the least of the problems with the movie. He was fine for the role, they gave him a few funny lines to deliver, and he delivered them funnily.

His two video game crimefighteing partners were many times worse, especially Peter Dinklage doing a poor imitation of Job from "Arrested Development." He was embarrassing. The other guy was merely a Jonah Hill ripoff, also not funny, but not as unfunny as Dinklage. I mean he was Not. Funny.

Movie itself was very stupid, and predictable, a bit of a mix between the excellent "King of Kong" documentary and "Ghostbusters". This was way more over the top for completely unnecessary reasons: For example, Sandler's childhood buddy grows up to be the president of the United States; the top defense official is an unbelieveably hot chick attracted to Sandler; they bring in a "creator of Pac man" seemingly just to make Asian-guy jokes. They even mess up the "80s nostalgia" opportunity with a bunch of lame jokes (Tammy Fay Baker! Where's the Beef!").

The game stuff is hardly insightful, I think there might be an idea about how the move to home-based gaming systems has made us more isolated but it's not really explored.

The graphics were kind of interesting, best shown during a fun scene where they fight a Centipede. And there was one moment in the pac-man fight that was fun to watch. And that's it. I lived these things as a kid and didn't believe there was anything interesting this movie said about those games in the least. It was just: Pac Man attacks New York! Let's make a whole movie about that!

So in summary: Sucked mostly. Some funny lines. One cool fight scene. My kid and his friend loved it.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: Wow. This got some of the most vicious reviews I've seen in a while.

When I saw the trailer, I knew there was no way I would want to see the movie.
Well, one reviewer did, and here's his (now viral) review:
http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2015/07/pixels-2015-review-text-version.html

Later