Commentary: Critics Were Too Hard On ‘Pixels’

Time can be an interesting lens through which to view cinema. Often, films are subject to the era in which they are released. A movie could be praised upon release and criticized years later, while the opposite can also be true. One immediately panned, but viewed less harshly in retrospect. Pixels should fall in the latter category. Upon first glance, the concept appears so wonky that it could be easily dismissed as stupid, and it was. The film holds a remarkably low rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, considering how much the world has changed in the decade since its release, perhaps critics judged the movie too harshly.

The film is about an alien invasion by a species who based their fighters on a recording of a video game championship from the 1980s. Because of this, Earth is attacked by arcade game characters from Pac-Man, Centipede, and Space Invaders. Conventional military fighters are useless in these battles, so President Will Cooper (Kevin James) enlist childhood friends Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gad) and Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler) to battle the alien forces alongside their rival, Eddie Plant (Peter Dinklage).

The entire concept is absurd from start to finish, as is typical with a Sandler movie. So it’s unfair to judge the film based on its ridiculous premise alone. It acknowledges just how silly it is, which actually plays into the film’s strengths. It’s important to remember this movie was released in 2015, a very different time. This was before the COVID pandemic and a lot of recent political upheaval. Audiences may have had more hope for the future and expected more from their cinema, so it’s understandable that a ridiculous movie would be criticized. But Pixels is a very fun action adventure comedy rife with nostalgia. People are in need of this type of escapism now more than ever, so if released today, the movie may have had a much better reception.

Pixels is now streaming on Netflix.