Warning: Spoilers ahead!
Early reviews of the new Adam Sandler comedy film Pixels suggested it might be yet another Sandler disaster . Now that Pixels has official hit theaters, the negative reviews are pouring in rapidly. The video game-inspired sci-fi flick is getting slammed over and over as one of Adam Sandler’s worst films yet.
Vox calls Pixels “ complete and utter garbage ,” describing the production as lazy and the jokes as unfunny.
“It’s not so much a film as it is an all-out assault on the senses, a middle finger to anyone with a brain. [ Pixels is] an open taunt, daring people (and their children) to spend money on a gaping malpractice of creativity.”
But the worst thing about Pixels, according to some , seems to be its poor representation of the video games it’s meant to be referencing. Pixels reportedly turns classic video games into one-dimensional sight gags — reducing beloved characters to monster movie villains.
Engadget’s Timothy J. Seppala expected Pixels to be terrible, but reports that it’s even worse than anticipated . He claims Pixels is most guilty of re-using age-old Hollywood tropes and offensive stereotypes, such as the chubby, virgin video game nerd who’s a social misfit.
“ Pixels is in an abusive relationship with its audience from the word ‘go,’” Seppala writes. “There are jokes made at the expense of modern games in an effort to win over the fans who grew up in the arcades.”
Watch the Pixels trailer below.
After all the controversy surrounding Adam Sandler’s in-production movie The Ridiculous Six , the actor was in desperate need of a hit. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Pixels even came close to delivering.
Wired and Kotaku both made lists of all the worst, most ridiculous things that happen in Pixels , including the fact that Kevin James plays the President of the United States of America. 30 Rock star Jane Krakowski is also in Pixels , but is given practically nothing to do for the entire movie. And at the end of Pixels , the beautiful girl predictably ends up with the previously repulsive, now-heroic video game nerd.
All of these bizarre flaws in Pixels might be easy to overlook if it weren’t for the completely ridiculous premise: an extremely advanced alien race used concepts from Earth’s own video games to attack humanity, and the only people qualified to challenge the invaders are video game nerds.
Have you seen Pixels ? What did you think?
For more on Pixels , read about Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage’s role in the movie.
[ Pixels screenshot courtesy of Happy Madison]