Pixels review: You're better off watching a game of Pong

Director: Chris Columbus; Screenwriters: Tim Herlihy, Timothy Dowling; Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, Michelle Monaghan, Brian Cox, Sean Bean; Running time: 106 mins; Certificate: 12A

The prospect of a new Adam Sandler movie hitting cinemas instills the same sense of trepidation as the theme from Jaws. Shivers down the spine. Heart palpitations. A cold sweat. Can the intriguing blockbuster premise of Pixels prove to be that bigger boat and offer us salvation?

No.

Scarily similar in concept to a 2002 episode of Futurama, Pixels revolves around an attack on Earth by aliens who have received a signal beamed into outer space that includes classic arcade games from the 1980s. They interpret it as a declaration of war and use a giant size Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and other such characters to launch a wave of destruction.

It's left to childhood video game champion and adulthood loser Sam (Sandler), his egotistical nemesis Eddie (Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage), best mate and US President Will (Kevin James) and conspiracy theory weirdo Ludlow (Josh Gad) to team up and outwit the extra terrestrials with their game-playing skills.

Several wacky individuals uniting to fend off ethereal forces from a city evoke Ghostbusters, especially when a massive Evil Pac-Man roams around like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man for one lavish set piece. Sadly, the execution is more a case of 'Fauxbusters'.

The movie's failure is rooted in a script that tries to position Sandler as the conventional everyman hero you'd expect to root for in a family blockbuster, yet gives him the kind of caustic and unpleasant put-downs that you'd expect to find in an Adam Sandler vehicle. The dialogue is just clanger after clanger, with such gems as "Have you been playing Space Invaders? Because you're invading my space", and (to the disturbed Ludlow, as he brandishes a book he wrote): "You should sell that at Barnes & Unstable."

It seems that every barrel hurled down by Donkey Kong has been scraped to find such lines. Moreover, it doesn't helped that he's equipped with a token love interest in the form of Michelle Monaghan's stern and superficial single mother, who inexplicably turns weak at the knees when the by-numbers script dictates. The attempts to introduce an overly cute alien creature to pander to the younger demographics also reeks of cynical contrivance and again creates a huge tonal disparity with the unsolicited insults from Sandler's supposed hero.

A reliance on crude, poorly-written stereotypes renders the characters unrelatable and alienating, making it impossible to take interest in their respective fates despite sporadically amusing turns from Dinklage and Gad. A foray into England to combat a giant pixelated centipede provides the nadir, with caricatures so odious that it makes Dick Van Dyke's 'Cock-er-ney' turn in Mary Poppins look like a naturalist performance from a Ken Loach film.

It doesn't help that this is all presented in woefully ineffective 3D, which just gives us another dimension to endure for no visceral reward. In fairness, Chris Columbus does shoot the movie well, with a nice visual flow and unobtrusive direction that foregrounds the well-staged aliens versus humans battle sequences. He's just on a hiding to nothing with the script.

Despite initial promise and a very welcome Max Headroom cameo, Pixels fails to package nostalgia into an effective blockbuster like Guardians Of The Galaxy. At many times throughout this film, you'd rather be watching someone play a 106-minute game of Pong.