With E3 here and Video Games being my baliwick, I’m always afraid that posting every day with E3 news will spam up the site. This makes me reluctant to post on things I’m actually geeking about. As Ideology of Madness’ resident Video Game geek, I feel obliged to talk about an upcoming Video Game Movie and my opinions on it.
For those who don’t know there’s a movie coming up called Pixels. This is based on a short video that has been on youTube for awhile and is linked at the bottom of this article. Ever since the video went viral, there’s been rumours of Hollywood scooping it up and besides my fear that it will totally rip off Futurama’s “Anthology of Interest II”, I’ve been cautiously optimistic.
Then I heard Adam Sandler was starring and producing…
Adam Sandler films have recieved an average Rotten Tomatoes rating of 28.5% and an average fan review of 56% over the last ten years and his most recent film Blended has a tomatoes/fan rating of 14%/71%. This tells me that Sandler’s core fanbase is still there and likes his movies, but his Box Office numbers and critic scores tell me that the general public doesn’t love him like they once did. Speaking as someone who enjoyed Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and 50 First Dates, I feel that his ratings on both Blended and the Grown Ups movies is FAR too generous. I’m not sure what bothers me more: That he primarily casts his best friends who can’t seem to really get roles otherwise, or that he’s still sticking to some of the same stale, old jokes that we got tired of years ago.
What's that? ANOTHER animal bodily function joke? ...sigh...
The only thing that brings a little faith to this production is the involvement of Brian Cox (Super Troopers, X2, R.E.D.), Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, X-Men Days of Future Past), and Josh Gad (Frozen). Unfortunately, given that they’re being listed as being opposite Sandler, I’m pretty sure that these amazing actors will be present in voice only so we’re going to miss out on the screen presence of Cox and Dinklage and have to settle for their voices instead. This means that we’re going to be left with Adam Sandler and his gaggle of friends running around doing their same old schtick while the truly awesome actors are relegated to voice-overs.
Now, maybe I’m being too hard on Adam Sandler. I actually enjoyed “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” and there were aspects of “Click” that I found entertaining, but it all depends on how he approaches this movie. As always, I’m curious what other people think so if you have an opinion of your own, feel free to weigh in using the coments below.
The Original “Pixel” Short: