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
As a whole this film fails at reaching the very low mark of its predecessor in almost every way possible. This Die Hard-inspired comedy "franchise" has now just added a very pointless sequel.
Taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 stars Kevin James as Paul--a bumbling mall cop who takes his job way too seriously. Now he's in Vegas for a security convention where he must stop a heist of the casino.
The entire film takes place within the confines of the Wynn Resort and Casino. There is no galavanting around the strip or hopping from casino to casino--so the should-be glamorous Vegas element is very glamourless.
As flippant as the first film is, this one adds insensitivity to the equation. The movie starts out by picking up where we left Blart last in his life--when he gets married. But we find out that his wife leaves him after 6 days. This is a character we really grow to like in the previous film and love the fact that she seems to adore Paul regardless of his clumsy ways. And then Paul's mom--whom he lives with--dies by getting run over by a milk truck. This is all supposed to be funny, but instead it's a jarring beginning for the few fans of the first film.
Overall, it's much of the same criticisms from the its predecessor, except more. There are maybe 3 solid laughs in the whole movie--but the rest of the jokes fall flat and are yawn-worthy. However, those 3 laughs may be bigger than the biggest laughs from the first film. Although in the first film there were way more of them. In this one, the highlight may be the bird-attack scene--which is played off to its brightest potential and gets the biggest laugh. One of Paul's cohorts is a security guard named Khan (Shelly Desai) who had most of the other laughs, but was grossly underutilized in this movie.
At least, in the end, there is a redeeming value to all of this. But then again, we could've just watched the first film twice.
Twizard Rating: 59
We've seen this movie plenty of times before, but somehow it doesn't seem as bad as the others. It's harmless and aims simply to make us laugh. A big issue may be that it's not quite a family film, yet it's nowhere near the level of an adult comedy. And with that limbo area covered, many folks try and make sense of it, but they can't. They have to just boil it down to the fact that it's a harmless movie that has been made--albeit maybe 10 to 15 years too late--and it exists.
Paul Blart is a bumbling mall cop who takes his job way too seriously while also trying to win over the woman of his dreams.
While James is funny, the script is terrible in the strictest sense. There are pretty much no jokes. All the humor comes from our lead's goofy responses to different scenarios or his ridiculously clumsy actions. Some may not find this type of humor funny in the slightest, but I have a soft spot for slapstick.
The film doesn't dumb itself down too much, but when it does it's painful. For instance, in one scene, Blart is held at gunpoint and relies on flicking a drop of hot sauce 15 feet into the bad guy's eye, but then once it hits the guy, our protagonist fails to capitalize on his success by taking down the perpetrator. Blart then jokes about how he doesn't follow up--which is funny, but also a cheap way for the filmmakers to extend the plot, as the antagonist gets away with two victims.
The premise is stretched thin, but the movie never seems to get too boring for the more easily entertained.
But it helps that we like the main character. He's truly a great guy to root for and doesn't have a mean bone in his body. We just really want him to win.
It's predictable, cliche, and ridiculous, but Paul Blart: Mall Cop can be a pretty decent watch with a group of friends.
Twizard Rating: 74
