Ultimately, Violet's purpose is to 'Basil Exposition' the film's tech and flirt with Brenner - because, you know, he's the lead and stuff. Violet van Patten is degraded with nicknames like 'Sugar Bum' and 'Snobby,' the latter of which she earns for not wanting to kiss Brenner at the start of the film. 30 Rock's Jane Krakowski is drastically underutilized as the First Lady, popping up in all of two throwaway scenes, while Monaghan's Lt. The female characters have it even worse. Meanwhile, Dinklage offers some semblance of entertainment as 'The Fire Blaster,' but the novelty of his character wears off after his first couple scenes. James's President Cooper is rendered as a bumbling, incompetent idiot who can't read out the word 'catastrophe.' Gad's character Ludlow gets pinged for his guy-on-guy affection and is frequently the butt of 'lonely virgin' jokes. In fact, pretty much all of the characters are underwhelming and portrayed as gimmicks. (That should tell you all you need to know about Pixels' lack of energy. Sandler in particular comes off downright bored playing Brenner, even during the film's action scenes. There's nothing genuine or clever about the story here, and director Chris Columbus and the cast seem to know it. But don't let the synopsis fool you Pixels is a run-of-the-mill Happy Madison production wrapped in a high-stakes, technicolor wrapper.

But when intergalactic aliens misinterpret footage of 8-bit video games as a declaration of war, they attack Earth in the form of Galaga, Centipede, Donkey Kong and other various video game icons, and that means Brenner and his buddies quickly become humanity's last chance at survival. President might actually be the most outlandish thing about this movie. In the present, the guys maintain dead-end jobs and zero prospects - save for James's character, whose turn as the U.S. The original story (which sounds suspiciously like a ripoff of Futurama's 'Anthology of Interest II') stars Sandler as Sam Brenner, who in the 1980s was king of the arcade, alongside his fellow gamers Cooper (James), Ludlow (Gad) and Eddie 'The Fire Blaster' Plant (Dinklage).

Pixels movie reviews