Adam Sandler’s family friendly video game movie has a focus on retro gaming with old pixel graphic eighties arcade games being the focus, rather than being an adaptation of any one game. Sandler’s character is the President’s best friend so when aliens attack using characters from old games, their friendly trips to the arcade become useful experiences.

We get a sort of underdog romance where the nerdy guy gets the girl. We get old rivalries getting settled and there’s a child in the film just to ensure it stays family friendly. The plot is just an excuse to have things happen as it’s not believable and doesn’t really matter in what without the retro gaming theme is just an average action comedy.

Famous faces pop up frequently throughout the film with Dan Ackroyd early on and Sean Bean shouting nonsense insults like “wiener coat“ and “nipple twisters” in the most Sean Bean way possible (just as a side note, some English expressions are used in the film but we don’t talk like they do.). We see Kevin James, Peter Dinklage and Josh Gad take on major parts in the movie with Brian Cox, Ashley Benson and Serena Williams all making an appearance.

The soundtrack is good. Graphically, although based on pixelated games, it looks really good in certain scenes and the finale when taking on a massively famous video game creature it looks incredible.

I found Pixels to be enjoyable, possibly my favourite Adam Sandler movie. It’s dumb fun with a clever way of using the theme. It’s stupid, daft but that’s the joy of it. I like that it’s pointless and doesn’t take itself too seriously. I would recommend watching it, especially to gamers.