Skip to footer

'Pixels': A movie needs more than nostalgia to win over audiences

Pixels stars Adam Sandler, Peter Dinklage, and Josh Gad as video game experts who must take down real-life versions of game characters. But critics are saying the film relies solely on memories audience members would have of these characters without supplying satisfying humor or a good story.

|
Courtesy of Sony Pictures/AP
'Pixels' is directed by Chris Columbus.

“Pixels,” a movie about video game champions battling real-life versions of famous characters, stars Adam Sandler and Peter Dinklage and opens on July 24.

In the film, aliens attack Earth and are inspired in doing so by '80s video game characters like Q*bert and Pac-Man, and the president (Kevin James) decides that the people most equipped to deal with this problem are those who have spent hours fighting the characters onscreen. Characters played by Sandler, Dinklage, and Josh Gad of “Frozen” step up to try to take down the attackers. 

Sandler’s recent work includes the little-seen 2014 movie “The Cobbler” and the 2014 movies “Top Five” and “Blended,” while Dinklage stars as court plotter Tyrion Lannister on the HBO fantasy series “Game of Thrones.”

The movie, which banks on the nostalgia audience members would feel when seeing a large version of a video game character like Donkey Kong, continues the trend of Hollywood betting big on audiences wanting to be reminded of entertainment experiences they’ve already had. This summer saw the release of “Terminator Genisys,” the newest film and a reboot of the classic science fiction film series, while this December will see the release of a new “Star Wars” film, complete with original series stars Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill. 

However, for some audience members, nostalgia by itself isn’t enough to make a film interesting. One reviewer called the film’s storyline “moronic,” while another found the film’s humor to “seldom hit the mark” and one critic wrote that the film has “soul-sucking emptiness… lazy.” 

In addition, some feel the pull of nostalgia isn’t enough for audience members to not notice when an idea for a film is similar to a very recent one. Some critics pointed out the similarities between “Pixels” and the 2012 Disney animated film “Wreck-It Ralph,” which centered on an original video game character of the same name but featured cameos by various classic video game characters including Bowser, Mario, and Sonic the Hedgehog as well as Q*bert, who also pops up in “Pixels.” One critic wrote that the movie is mostly “’Wreck-It Ralph’ novelty without the character development,” while another wrote that “within the rarefied realm of 1980s video game nostalgia, ‘Pixels’ is no ‘Wreck-It Ralph.’”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Pixels': A movie needs more than nostalgia to win over audiences
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Culture-Cafe/2015/0723/Pixels-A-movie-needs-more-than-nostalgia-to-win-over-audiences
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe