I like Adam Sandler. Pixels is a story of nerds and nostalgia in 3D, I absolutely love this movie. Despite what anyone says I find this move hilarious and it never fails to brighten my day. The plot is very entertaining and I enjoy the 80’s nostalgia the film provides.
It begins in 1982 when 12-year-old best friends Sam and Will have their first encounter with arcade games. Sam turns out to be a natural, and it's not long until he's competing in an inaugural championship, up against the flashy, trash-talking Eddie. Footage of this first competition is added to a time capsule and sent into space.
Cut to 30 years later, and the two best friends have taken rather different paths. Sam (now played by Sandler) works for a company installing home electronic equipment, while Will (Kevin James) is the US president.
Meanwhile, somewhere in outer space, inhabitants of a distant planet have mistaken the contents of the time capsule for a declaration of war. They've dispatched to Earth their own version of these arcade games, updated for destruction. Only a skilled arcade gamer can save the world.
So – in a kind of "who you gonna call" move – Sam, his conspiracy theorist friend (Josh Gad), plus the still combative Eddie (Peter Dinklage) are dispatched to battle the alien arcade gamers.
Pixels is inspired by a brief, engaging, award-winning short of the same name from French filmmaker Patrick Jean (you can find it online) that imagines New York overwhelmed by the likes of Tetris, Frogger and Pac-Man.
To this notion, the filmmakers, director Chris Columbus and screenwriters Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, have added some nice 1980s detail: the aliens have also adapted footage of Madonna, Ronald Reagan, Hall & Oates and Max Headroom, and used it to convey their challenges.