Movie Review: Pixels. (SPOILERS)

Adam Sandler has made a ton of money as an actor. Jimmy Fallon and Andy Samberg owe the start of their careers on SNL partly to following in Sandler's footsteps. For years Sandler has been blasted for making silly, crass and over the top movies. Critics love to hate on his movies. They are childish and silly. 

I love them. 

Movies to me sometimes need to be over the top and silly. Yes, most of his movies plots sound like something my friends and I would come up with at 3 am when drinking Surge during a sleep over. Jacked up on caffeine and over tired = Isreali James Bond becomes hair dresser or what if aliens saw 80s video games and made replicas to attack the earth. 

I would have loved that idea as a 12 year old kid. It still tickles me as an adult today. 

Pixels has been called a flop this summer. Expensive and silly. Ridiculous and poor special effects. It's still a lot of fun. 

Sandler and Kevin James play buddies who grew up in the early video game era. The classics, Galaga, Space Invaders, Centipede etc. Probably the biggest leap of logic in the whole movie is that Kevin James is President. Kanye seems more likely than that. His role as President is simply to facilitate the nerd crew from the early 80s joining forces to stop the invasion. Ironically they are more qualified to deal with this invasion than the drillers in Armageddon were.   

Josh Gad makes an appearance as another member of the nerd team. (Gad and Jonah Hill are the the Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton of their generation. Often confuse me which one it is and it feels like they could basically be interchangeable in any role.) Michelle Monaghan was the clincher for me. Had a crush on her since Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and she saves Eagle Eye by herself. Plus it's classic Hollywood to make old frumpy Sandler her love interest. It plays to us old frumpy guys. 

Peter Dinkledge looks like he is having a lot of fun in a role that is both very far from Tyrion Lanisster yet oddly familiar. Sean Bean makes a cameo and (SPOILER) doesn't die, which was a bit of a surprise.  All in the all the cast is secondary to the games, which were a bit before my time but still hold some nostalgia. 

The best decision I made was going to Pixels with my son. He loved it. He plays Mappy and PacMan at our favorite restaurant. He loved the action. He loved learning that the old games had patterns you could master. After the movie during dinner he watched Mappy and tried to master the patterns himself. 

We laughed. There was some fun action sequences, especially the Mini Cooper Ghosts and the Centipede battle. I enjoyed it. My 9 yr old son loved it. 

If you have a child that likes video games, if you ever wasted a pocket full of quarters trying to make it to the next level or if you simply want a silly escape from reality with a willful suspension of disbelief - you will enjoy Pixels.