Review - Pixels

By the look of things, Adam Sandler is as tired of making these things as I am of watching them. Once again he’s an underachieving man-boy in a love-hate relationship with a woman far out of his league. And once again some improbable bit of cleverness on his part wins the day for him. Here the cleverness is a smidge more clever than usual: Earth is attacked by aliens who take the form of 1980s arcade game bad guys, so only a hapless 40-something game nerd can defend us. That supplies a few plot twists and some effects shots we wouldn’t have gotten from a more prosaic dilemma. Verdict: mildly amusing.