It’s been no secret that 2015 has been filled with box office bombs. We’ve had "Jupiter Ascending," "Tomorrowland," and more recently, "Pan" have suffered from tremendous losses. The biggest bomb that made headlines, however, was the highly anticipated "Pixels" starring Adam Sandler.
"Pixels" is about a low-life former gaming champion called to duty to defend the world against an alien invasion, only instead of aliens, they’ve sent copies of popular video games which can only be destroyed by playing the game each battle resembles.
There were a couple things I liked about "Pixels." For instance, I liked the small creativity that went into the heavily advertised Pac-Man chase scene. But, the Pac-Man chase scene is the closest to being memorable as "Pixels" is going to get other than it being another Sandman flick.
A lot of things in "Pixels" felt like the same-old Sandler schpiel. You’ll find toilet humor, romance issues with obvious “they’re meant for each other” elements, the occasional cute character for everyone to love, and a plot that doesn’t do itself any justice.
The last part comes in when the characters learn as to how they got in a war with aliens in the first place. Apparently, these aliens were peeping in on human activity and took video game footage from Galaga and Space Invaders as a declaration of war from the humans. The aliens challenge Earth to defend itself in a best of three war with each win being represented by a victim. For some reason, we never get to see exactly who the aliens are or what they look like since their warriors are simply life-sized carbon copies of Donkey Kong and the other games. Instead, the aliens communicate through different icons of the 80s like that classy dude from "Fantasy Island," Max Headroom (who sounds a lot like Jim Carey despite it really being Matt Frewer), and legendary band Hall & Oates.
Immediately, I already knew that this movie was made simply to ride on nostalgia for people my age and maybe people who might be around my Dad’s age. He grew up seeing the evolution of video games and many other things from the 80s whereas I grew up with Pac-Man and some other classic arcade titles like Donkey Kong and Q*Bert.
The other criticism I have is the debatable plagiarism at hand. I remember after "Pixels" was announced I was instantly thinking of
"Futurama." A certain episode of the cult hit animated series showed Earth being attacked by aliens in the style of video games. General Pac-Man led Earth’s team and the final battle took form of Space Invaders. While the style was duplicated, the plot is strikingly similar to the point of, “Was this a rip-off and who really cares?”
Honestly, this movie had a pretty bad opening weekend. The movie may not have lost much money, it managed to make some profit over time. But, this brings me to question Adam Sandler’s career.
I don’t usually rip on filmmakers. I may not like their content, but I have some amount of respect for each filmmaker in some way, shape, or form. (And yes, Michael Bay is one of those; the man knows how to exploit a fanbase and market a film.)
The Sandman is one of those people. I may not like all of his content, but he does what his films are made for; to make you laugh. Sandler is a laid back guy. He wants people to feel good and laugh and his movies do just that. That’s why it’s called comedy. It’s supposed to make you laugh.
What a lot of critics look for today is witty humor and high-brow content or something like that. Adam Sandler isn’t that kind of filmmaker who is going to try and make the next Academy Award winning comedy or anything remotely close to that status. He knows his purpose with his movies and he accomplishes what his movies are meant for (more or less).
One observation I’ve made regarding Adam Sandler and my generation is that we remember a good amount of what we consider his best work. Many people love "Happy Gilmore," "Hotel Transylvania," and "Click." One Sandler movie that will stay with me is "That’s My Boy" because I went with my Dad to see it on Father’s Day. We had a good time and had a wonderful lunch after. So, even after Sandler is gone (years from now, of course), he will be remembered as a funny, feel-good storyteller, as somebody you can expect to make you chuckle at the least and get you out of a bad mood.
