Pixels: Pixelating an experience

Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan
Rated: 5.5/10
Pixels is an imaginary wonder but it comes sans a soul. But gamers, and even children who have grown up on Packman, Lady Lily, Smurfs and other such iconic animated characters, might just find a link here even though the moviemaker’s target audience is quite blurred.
Adam Sandler as the loser gamer of yore who, as an adult, corrects technology rather than leading it because once upon a time in his childhood he lost a video game arcade competition to a saucy imposter, is tasked here to save the world from a unique alien invasion.
The invaders are characters he grew up defeating in races and the major one among them is Packman himself “Packman a bad guy?”, he asks in astonishment as the creator of Packman, the good old Japanese fellow can’t believe “his son” can turn rogue.
The special effects used to spread the bigness of this invasion from outer space are gigantic and the imageries quite well-received. But at one point, as the three-tier game of life and death begins between a bumbling President, a loser gamer and a rogue arcader alongside a cyber wonder boy on one side and Packman and others pixelating the entire world on the other, the race turns a tad repetitive and much too predictable.
That does not make it a boring movie, just a wee bit expensive one to go to in the cinemas now that the Delhi Government has doubled the movie taxes!
Source: Sunday Pioneer, August 2, 2015

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