PIXELS

1.5 stars (out of 5)

Much has been made about how endlessly dreadful this latest Adam Sandler/Happy Madison production truly is but, strictly speaking, it’s no worse than ghastly previous efforts from AS like Blended or those hideous Grown Ups movies (or That’s My Boy or Just Go With It or Jack And Jill or… stop!!! Stop!!!). It is, nevertheless, much more elaborate and expensive, as well as louder, crasser, more aggressively retro and far more exhausting.

A dismal 1982 flashback introduces us to a pack of video game champ nerds, and then we flash forward to now to meet them all again as gormless pushing-50 adults: the rubbery doofus Brenner (Sandler) hasn’t achieved anything except disappointment, the creepy Ludlow (Josh Gad) is more lamely weird, and the dimwitted Cooper (Kevin James) has somehow been elected President (what ludicrous alternate reality is this???). And they’re all called in to act when, of course, aliens responding to a 1982 NASA capsule featuring video games (or something) attack using destructive representations of classic characters and set-ups, including Pac-Man, Galaga and so forth (yawn…).

President Cooper assigns Brenner, Ludlow, military type Violet (Michelle Monaghan, who naturally finds Sandler irresistible after a while) and onetime-Donkey-Kong-champ-turned-jailbird Eddie (Peter Dinklage, who probably wished he’d stayed on the Game Of Thrones set) to fight off the invaders in gruesomely unfunny sequences that go on and on and on and on and on (and reveal the knowing hand of epic-friendly director Chris Columbus, who obviously thought this was set to be ‘Champagne Comedy’).

Overlong, overcooked, overextended and over-everythinged but never amusing, Pixels is horrendous on many levels (the ‘Adam Sandler Gets All The Cute Chicks’ level, for example), but perhaps most offends due to its PG Rated, wannabe family-friendly status – so please, won’t somebody think of the children!!!