PIXELS (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, sociological*

PIXELS is just another "underdog comedy," in which social outcasts find that they, and only they, can preserve the world against destruction. I'm not sure of the trope's provenance in cinema but I saw similar ideas propounded in dozens of Stan Lee fantasy-tales of the sixties, and I'm sure there must have been several precursors in prose fiction.

As middle-school kids, Sam, Will and Ludlow are nerds obsessed with video games. Sam gets a rare moment in the sun, competing in a major videogame contest, but he loses to an upstart named Eddie "The Fireblaster." Inexplicably videocassette footage of the competition is loaded into a time capsule and sent into space as a representation of human culture to any aliens who might open the capsule. I think comic books would have been better, but that's me.

As adults, Ludlow has become a conspiracy nut and Sam (Adam Sandler) is an electronics installer. Will (Kevin James) is rather more prosperous, having become President of the U.S., but at heart he's still a nerd, hanging out with Sam so they can discuss important topic like their favorite hot celebrity. Sam later gets further humiliation when he encounters a hot chick named Violet (MIchelle Monaghan), and she puts him down for his low-paying occupation. But Sam starts to get payback when he's summoned to the White House-- where Violet also works, as a military aide-- and asked to consult in his capacity as a videogame expert.

It turns out that some metamorphic aliens did encounter the space capsule, but because of all the war-games inside, they thought Earth was challenging them to combat. They allow the challengers to pick the "weapons," and thus they start attacking in such forms as the invading ships of Galaga, a giant Pac-Man, and the almost inevitable Donkey Kong. The three super-nerds are joined by Sam's old rival Eddie (Peter Dinklage) and together they must mount a defense against the quixotic aliens.

The director and writers keep things as superficial as possible, though there is an odd line, by an alien in the form of "Q-bert," to the effect that his people were once a grim race without any happiness. (I suppose another probable model for PIXELS might be the Classic Trek episode A PIECE OF THE ACTION.) The plot, and Sam's romantic arc with Violet, follows very predictable courses, but I graded the mythicity as fair just because the film does get kind of "meta" about including all these videogame references. There's no attention to the dynamics behind each fantasy, though, in marked contrast to the superior WRECK-IT RALPH. 

In terms of crossovers, there are none here, since Q'bert and Pac-Man and the rest are all fake versions of the game-characters, also in marked contrast to WRECK-IT RALPH.