Review: Pixels

Director: Chris Columbus

Stars: Peter Dinklage, Michelle Monaghan, Adam Sandler

A List Of Things You Can Do In 106 Minutes That Cost Less Than A Ticket To See Pixels And Are More Rewarding

• Just sit there doing nothing.
• Have a nap.
• Play any of the 80’s video games featured in the film (you want a list? ask the internet).
• Play The Last Of Us, which is also featured in the film, but which gets arbitrarily attacked for being supposedly soulless and artless (Pot. Kettle. Black).
• Go and see Inside Out instead.
• Hell, go and see The Cobbler instead (probably harder as it’s not really showing anywhere – and what a shame that is).
• Have a staring contest with a mirror.
• Do a jigsaw that you know for a fact has one missing piece.
• Buy a yo-yo and immediately throw it in the bin.
• Investigate how many of those pinchy bulldog clips you can attach to your ears and/or genitals.
• Call back all those fine companies who left you a voicemail message about PPI or just sit there listening to their messages on repeat.
• Be one of those special people who make memes using pictures of Minions (seriously, whoever these people actually are, they need to go to jail).
• Write a detailed letter to Adam Sandler explaining why it’s crucial that he continue making films.
• Attempt to punch a radiator in half.
• See how much milk you can drink in one go before your body rejects it.
• Play swingball by yourself while you cry the whole time.
• Make a voodoo doll of yourself.
• Run the serrated lip on a roll of clingfilm back and forth across your mouth.
• Blindfold yourself and see how easy it is to run from one side of a busy roundabout to the other.
• Reward yourself if you make it halfway by declaring yourself king of the central reservation and commence setting up a small republic.
• Publicly urinate on some communal art, get arrested while doing so, then mull over whether it was worth it during the ride to the police station.
• Pick a fight with a cleaner in Poundland.
• Watch the last 15 minutes of Requiem For A Dream seven times consecutively.
• Attempt to eat a functioning electric fence.
• Illegally download a CAM copy of Pixels and then don’t watch it.
• Saw off all of your own fingers, except your index fingers, then poke yourself in the eyes.
• Mercy-kill a beloved pet, only to realise afterwards that you didn’t have to.
• Boil a kettle then purposefully pour the contents into your own lap.
• Tell someone who’ll reject you that you love them.
• Stand in the rain dressed head-to-toe in denim then go for a four mile run.
• Throw your childhood Lego collection all over the floor then jump up and down on it in bare feet.
• Draw a picture of your dad and set it on fire.
• Pay a hobo to waterboard you.
• Go to the beach, buy a portion of chips then offer them up to the seagulls and see what happens next.
• Attempt to perform your own appendectomy aboard a Stagecoach bus.
• Walk into the nearest mid-price high street clothing retailer, stand with your arms by your sides and just start screaming.
• Nail-gun your television and all the lights in your home and sit down in the dark.
• Just punch yourself in the face.
• Attempt to write a serious, nuanced critique of the film Pixels, only to realise that it’s futile. It’s pointless. There is no grounded reaction to a film so deliberately, bafflingly, staggeringly incoherent. No possible logical response. There’s nowhere to go in a normal, sensible review of this movie except into a vortex of exasperated, befuddled tirades. It defies reason. It defies justification. It is the antithesis of sense. It is proof, if you still needed any, that religion is a fraud, God is a myth and there is nothing but chaos and disorder and then death. And after death… nothing. Not even cold. Not even disappointment and despair. Just. Nothing. So you might as well just give up. This movie isn’t for anyone. It’s not for kids (they won’t get half the references and the ‘humour’ is frequently inappropriate). It’s not for adults because ALL REASONS (example: Kevin James plays the President for shit’s sake). It just defies reason. And, somehow, somehow, it’s still not the worst film of the year so far. But it is the most dumbfounding. Pixels is an existential nightmare. And, quite coincidentally, total, total trash.

If you can write that review, well done. You’ve done better than I have.