Release: August 18, 2015
Film: Pixels
Tagline: By popular demand, we figure out if this box office disaster is Adam Sandler's worst movie yet!
We remembered these tropes so you don't have to:
- Actor Allusion:
- The Critic replaces Ludlow, Sam's Conspiracy Theorist friend, with Olaf, by virtue of both being played by Josh Gad.
- After the Critic returns President Cooper (Kevin James), whom he replaced with Malcolm!Obama for most of the review, he dubs into him these lines:Critic!Cooper: Yay! Your president Paul Blart is gonna shoot up aliens! Someone give me a beer to chug!
- Beat: The Critic mocks the usage of this during Sam and Eddie's first meeting in years, wondering if at this point all the Happy Madison Productions fans will still laugh at it.
- But Thou Must!: At one point the Appler Sandler gives the Critic and the elephant the choice between "funny" and "not funny". Amazed, they elect to choose the "funny" option, only for it move around the screen and not allow Critic to press it.
- Call-Back: Shyamal-Amon returns to remove the acting ability from Peter Dinklage as Eddie.
- Cliché Storm: The Critic's In-Universe opinion of the film — specifically, those commonly found in Sandler's films, so much so he claims to have discovered "Appler Sandler", a phone app which allows him to create his own Sandler flick by cherry-picking desired elements.
- Clip Show: Inverted. Like the Jurassic World review two months ago, the Critic gets around the fact that he cannot use clips from a movie that is still in theaters by substituting props and his own crew.
- The Comically Serious: Kevin James as President Cooper is replaced by the Critic with Malcolm as Barack Obama for most of the review, just to demonstrate how inappropriate Cooper's actions are for someone who has a very serious job.
- Elephant in the Living Room: A Literal Metaphor of this trope demands the Crtic to address Futurama's take at video games attacking in "Anthology of Interest II".
- Everyone Has Standards: Subverted. Critic!Sandler calls out Rob Schneider for pretending to have standards when it comes to racial humor, and he agrees.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even Shyamal-Amon deems the awkward silence between Sam and Eddie so stupid he promptly bolts out of the scene.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: While the Critic doesn't think Pixels is the worst Adam Sandler film ever, he nevertheless attributes the massive backlash it has received to people finally having had enough of Sandler still using his tired old cliches as late as 2015.
- Money, Dear Boy: In-Universe. Critic claims the writers were less interested in polishing the climax than they were in getting a quick buck.
- MST3K Mantra: Critic!Sandler attempts to invoke this but the Critic proceeds to point out why this doesn't work: Sandler still acts like he's taking the movie seriously.
- Our Presidents Are Different: Having used Malcolm!Obama as a stand-in for President Cooper to further demonstrate the ridiculousness of the latter's antics, the Critic admits he thinks it would actually be pretty awesome if Obama decided to join a fight against alien invaders. He subsequently subverts/defies this trope by re-substituting the guy with Cooper's superimposed head.
- Readings Blew Up the Scale: Kevin James playing the president reeked of so much bullshit it caused the Critic's phone to explode.
- Shout-Out:
- The opening sketch has the Critic lampooning Sandler's time in Saturday Night Live singing acoustics.
- Zero Wing's All Your Base Are Belong to Us meme is also referenced in the warning screen from the aliens.
- Take That!:
- The Critic's Sandler impression mocks his fall from grace, all styled as Self-Deprecation.
- The Critic compares the backlash over Pixels to Fantastic Four (2005), saying it's was like this year's counterpart of that movie... until it was dethroned by this year's actual Fantastic Four movie.
- Like his Jurassic World review, the Critic takes time at the end to once again take potshots at the overzealous copyright protection system that had caused several of his videos to be temporarily removed from YouTube.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Tamara!Violet downs her glass of wine before breaking character to do a "Who Writes This Crap?!" rant. At the end she, Doug!Sam and Jim!Eddie hug and comfort each other as they agree to try to survive the whole film.
- The Unintelligible: Barney!Porter speaks in so much gibberish the Critic dubs into him standard Sandler bully lines.
- Villain Decay: As if his degradation from his After Earth reappearance isn't enough, Shyamal-Amon had to be taught by the Critic how to properly "Shyamalize" Dinklage in a Sandler film (turn something funny into unfunny, where in the M. Night Shyamalan films it's the other way around).
- Would Rather Suffer: The elephant said he'd rather rub his balls in a cheese grater than listen to Adam Sandler's annoying voice.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Defied, as the Critic doesn't even consider Pixels the worst Sandler film of all time. On the other hand, he understands why it has garnered such a massive hatedom.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Tamara!Violet breaks character to rant about the absurdity of Eddie being able to use a speed cheat to win his Pac-Man match against Sam years ago and again during the fight against Pac-Man in the present day.
- Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: The Critic deems the fact that President Cooper (yet another goofball Kevin James role) is legally elected to be too stupid even for an America where Donald Trump is a hot favorite for the 2016 elections. It reeked of so much bullshit even his phone overloads and explodes.
- You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Outside the film itself, and "comedic talent" instead of "powers". The Critic believes that Sandler is wasting his potential to actually be funny and step up his game.
Yay! Your President Paul Blart is gonna shoot up aliens!
