Quick Movie Review: Pixels (2015)

At its core, Pixels is very very unique. We start off in 1982 when a young Adam Sandler and a young Kevin James are hanging out at their local arcade. '80s tunes are blaring in the background and everything. It's a great opening. Sandler's character, Sam Brenner, competes in the arcade game world championship. A time capsule with footage of the competition is to be sent into outer space in hopes that alien life will find it and learn about our culture. Flash forward to present-day where James' character, Will Cooper, is now the President of the United States and Sam is just an electronics repair guy. But Earth is in jeopardy as these aliens who found the footage see it as a declaration of war between planets and send in '80s arcade characters to attack Earth. President Cooper must now call upon his arcade-wiz friend to advise him in how to defeat these video games.

Besides its originality, it's deep cast of characters provides us with a lot of laughs and humorous situations. But it remains as exactly that--a comedy. The action sequences are mostly pedestrian, as well as few and far between. Although it's a great break from the over-self-importance of most other action films nowadays, don't expect Mad Max either.

The film's true downfall is the fact that it leaves nothing to mystery. There isn't anything left to be uncovered. Everything that needs to be revealed is done so early on, and the only thing that we have left to question is whether or not Earth will win. But we can obviously predict the answer to that.

Despite its fresh concept, it doesn't do as much as it can with it. With a better script it could have been an instant-classic, but now we see it as merely a comedy that doesn't seem to have a grip on action. It's full of plot holes and sloppy inaccuracies with chronology. And there isn't really any depth or character attachment. We are so far away from worrying about the characters that it just becomes all about the '80s references and jokes.

But it's popcorn entertainment--consistent in its narrative and keeps us laughing the whole way through. It's as harmless as they come.

Twizard Rating: 81

Quick Movie Review: Blended

I'm not the biggest Adam Sandler fan, although there are a few of his movies that I do really enjoy (50 First Dates, Waterboy), but it seems like no matter what, I still end up looking forward to watching his films for some odd reason. I guess I just always know that they're going to be mindlessly entertaining for the most part and will have at least a couple of funny bits in them--although expectedly disjointed. This movie is no exception. But besides having its 2 or 3 laughable moments, it isn't a good movie by any means. The story is predictable and far from original. It's corny. The setup is too long and it takes forever to get the audience into it. There wasn't enough comedic momentum to really drive the film for any given amount of time. The script was extremely sloppy, and it even seemed as though things had been put together after the fact or added at the last minute. And I'm not saying this as a bad thing--but the randomness was at an all-time high--even for an Adam Sandler film. But it was still entertaining and heartwarming where it needed to be without seeming too fake.

Like I said, it's really predictable, but I do applaud the filmmakers for not letting the movie unfold in a predictable way. There were a couple of nice plot twists actually. The visuals are really nice, and the set pieces are very detailed--which is something that will probably make people come back for a rewatch.

Overall, it really suffers from sloppiness and lack of structure towards the beginning. But story-wise, the 3rd act saved it for me, and will most likely do the same for the less picky moviegoers.

Twizard Rating: 68

Quick Movie Review: Grandma's Boy

The story is not all that great and it's a pretty stupid movie. Over time you'll forget what it was even about. However, it's also pretty enjoyable--and it has that going for it if nothing else, which isn't a bad thing to have. There are no stars here (Jonah Hill wasn't a household name yet). It's truly a sum of its parts--which are a funny bunch of character actors all getting their time to shine in this egoless comedy. 

Twizard Rating: 76