by George Wolf
Pixels
So, in Pixels, Kevin James is the President of the United States.
I’ll pause and let you collect your thoughts.
President Will Cooper hasn’t lost touch with the common folk, especially his childhood BFF Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler), who’s now a “geek squad” type techie at a box store. Back in the 1980s, the pair ruled the arcades with mastery on all the popular video games, and those skills come in pretty handy once a pixelated attack comes out of the sky.
It seems aliens got a look at a space probe from 1982 and confused some video game footage as a battle challenge from Earth. They may also be punishing us for making “Pac-Man Fever” such a big hit, but the point is, once the centipedes attack, it’s clear the military’s best option is to turn things over to the “losers who are good at old video games.”
It’s actually a pretty fun premise, sprung from a 2010 short film by Patrick Jean. Expanded by director Chris Columbus and the Sandler-friendly writing team of Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling, it becomes an occasionally inspired 80s throwback with a couple of winning comedic performances.
That couple isn’t James and Sandler, who both sleepwalk through their roles with little interest and less comic timing. Peter Dinklage, though, is a gas as Eddie, a former video game champion refusing to let go of the past. With mullet and attitude straight out of King of Kong (please see it if you haven’t), Dinklage brings some welcome mischief, while Josh Gad is instantly likable as Ludlow, nerdiest of the grown-up gamers.
Left alone, Dinklage, Gad, and the alien video game battles would have gotten Pixels closer to the Ghostbusters reboot it aspires to be. But Dan Aykroyd’s cameo only reinforces how badly this movie needs a Bill Murray type-presence, and Sandler is not it. His lazy-off with James just dilutes the fun, and renders Brenner’s flirtation with a military weapons specialist (Michelle Monaghan, wasted) DOA.
Columbus does his best to fill the screen with blasts of 3-D love for the 80s, but it isn’t long before the gimmick of Pixels wears thin, and running out of quarters doesn’t seem as bad as you remember.
Southpaw
Hope is a tricky word in the hands of a writer. It is almost impossible not to assume the name Hope has been assigned a character for symbolic purposes. Certainly this can be done with finesse, but more often it’s as subtle as a punch in the face. (See what I did there?)
Such is the case with Southpaw, Antoine Fuqua’s by-the-numbers redemption tale about down-on-his-luck boxer Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal), who turns to a grizzled trainer played by Forest Whitaker to help him fight his way back to the top.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie. Hope’s on top of the boxing world until tragedy strikes. His wife is killed, his daughter is taken into protective custody, he loses all his money and has to find the true boxer inside himself to reclaim his life. It is every boxing movie you have ever seen.
Sports films are perhaps the most cliché-ready of any – boxing films more than most. Some find a way to do the rags-to-riches (or riches-to-rags-to-riches) storyline well: The Fighter, Rocky. Even Gavin O’Connor‘s 2011 MMA film Warrior managed to embrace the well-worn path and still find new and interesting things to say. Much of that credit goes to a rock-solid cast including the great Tom Hardy and Nick Nolte (Oscar nominated for his role).
Southpaw certainly boasts an excellent performance in the battered and ripped form of Gyllenhaal. Following the greatest performance of his life in Nightcrawler, Gyllenhaal again delivers a deeply felt, sincere turn as Hope battles toward atonement.
The film opens with a bloody, manic Hope rushing directly toward the camera, his gnarled and dripping mug and howling mouth finally filling the entire screen. Fuqua – having proven an ability throughout his career to amp up otherwise familiar content with his particular flair with the camera – starts off promisingly.
Unfortunately, the filmmaker can’t deliver on that promise. All is well enough when the camera is on Gyllenhaal, who seems undeterred by the brashly formulaic story unfolding around him. His presence is almost alarming, and in his performance you see the intellectual, social, and emotional limitations this disgraced boxer has to battle.
It’s almost enough to overlook the brazenly derivative film around him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNcqD2CJ_7s
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