Pixels

After “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone” director Chris Columbus has another popular movie to hit the big screen. “Pixels” is based on a short film from 2010, which shows video games invading New York City. The movie starts with young Sam Brenner attending the arcade world championship in 1982. He and his friend Will Cooper love to play videogames and Sam turns out to be outstanding in playing them. They meet Ludlow Lamonsoff, who is in love with Lady Lisa, a character from a video game, but still they take him in. In the last round of the championship Sam looses in “Donkey Kong” against another boy named Eddie Plant. The whole world championship is filmed and sent the tape into space. Now in the present Will (Kevin James) seems to be the most hated president of the United States. Sam (Adam Sandler) works for a company that installs e.g. TVs, play stations and Ludlow (Josh Gad) still is obsessed with Lady Lisa. One night a US military station in Guam is attacked and the attacker left mysterious cubes. Meanwhile Sam installs the home heater system of Violet Van Patten (Michelle Monaghan) and finds out, that she is in a crisis because of her getting divorced. He mistakes her and tries to kiss her. Suddenly his best friend Will calls him and as he is on his way to the White House he sees Violet following him. Will was asking himself, if the attacker were video games and Sam agrees, but the rest of the government of course disagrees, until the Taj Mahal, India, is filmed, while being destroyed. Now the US army prepares to fight against the modified Videogames along with Sam and Ludlow as experts.
The movie features three of the greatest comedians in our time: Kevin James (The King of Queens, Grown Ups), Adam Sandler (Bedtime Storys, Just go with it) and Josh Gad (Frozen, to be seen in the life action remake Beauty and the Beast as Lefou). So it is clear, that the movie has a lot of catchphrases and humour. The visual effects are great and really well done, but still sometimes the catchphrases are too much and not that funny. The role of Ludlow features too much clichés of a nerd and his “happy ever after” is strange especially for his family. I knew the „happy ever after” of Sam, the moment when he was an adult. that was a bit sad, because I like an unexpected ending. I am not a great fan of arcades, but still it was fun to watch. “Pixels” gets six point five lemondrops (three point five lemons).