Story

Themes

Intergalactic war; computer games

Violence

Pixels has a lot of violence. For example:

• There are war scenes that feature loud, explosive violence.
• Computer game characters like Pac-Man, Centipede and Donkey Kong are shot and destroyed.
• People and objects are ‘pixellated’ when their body parts turn to crystal-like cubes.
• Buildings explode and collapse like Tetris buildings.
• A UFO attacks Guam army base. There are huge explosions and fire everywhere. A soldier disintegrates after being ‘pixellated’.
• Sam punches Ludlow in the face when he surprises him in a van. Ludlow falls out of the back of the van, and Sam threatens him with a baseball bat.
• Ludlow yells verbal abuse at his grandmother.
• Ludlow has a screaming fit at a group of soldiers and calls them names.
• The General punches Ludlow in the face.
• A giant centipede eats a soldier then escapes onto the streets of London, destroying everything in its path.
• A giant Pac-Man comes down the street eating everything in sight and pixellating everything.
• The inventor of Pac-Man tries to reason with it, but it attacks him instead.
• The Pac-Man challenge involves chasing Pac-Man down several streets in mini cars. Ludlow’s car gets destroyed, Eddie’s car goes into a river, and Sam’s car flies out of a window and almost gets eaten by Pac-Man.
• Violet’s son Matty (Matt Lintz) gets pixellated and taken up into a spaceship.
• The spaceship drops computer game characters over the world, and they destroy the planet. There are people running and screaming everywhere.
• Some objects attack a school bus, which has screaming children inside it.
• Violet and the gamers use huge laser guns to attack the computer characters. Violet kills Smurf.
• Ludlow is in love with ‘Lady Lisa’, a computer game character. She comes alive and attacks Ludlow with swords, but then falls in love with him.
• The final ‘game’ is Donkey Kong, in which a giant monkey throws objects at Sam, Matt and Violet. Sam has to fight his way through the maze to save the world.

Sexual references

Pixels has some sexual references. For example:

• Matty’s dad is having an affair with a 19-year-old girl.
• Ludlow uses sexualised terms to insult the soldiers.
• Ludlow smacks the men on their bottoms in a sexually suggestive way.
• Eddie requests a ‘threesome’ between himself, Serena Williams and Martha Stewart as a condition of him helping the government.
• Ludlow says that he’s going to ‘die a virgin’ when his car is destroyed.
• Eddie says he’s been in prison for eight years and hasn’t been with a woman in all that time, so ‘she’ll be in for a big surprise’.
• Serena Williams (as herself) sends a text message to Eddie. The message says, ‘Meet me in the hero’s bedroom’. The scene shows her and Martha Stewart waving to Eddie.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Pixels shows quite a lot of drinking. For example, Violet drinks in her closet, Sam drinks wine out of a bottle, and Cooper drinks beer from a jug.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some sexual activity in Pixels, including when Sam tries to make out with Violet. She rejects him at first, but they kiss later on.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in Pixels:

• computer game characters like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Centipede
• Star Wars merchandise
• Crystal Head Vodka.

Coarse language

Pixels has some coarse language.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Pixels is a comic science fiction movie mostly aimed at teenagers, but with some appeal for adult fans of 1980s computer games. It features a mix of animation and real actors.

This movie has frequent violence, which is likely to have a bigger impact on children in the 3D version. If you have younger children, you might also be concerned about the movie’s crude humour and coarse language. For these reasons, we don’t recommend this movie for children under 12 years, and we do recommend parental guidance for children over 12 years.

The main message from this movie is that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they need to.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include being brave, working as a team, and putting others first.

You could also talk with your children about:

• Violet being a strong female role model
• Sam and Cooper stealing money to play arcade games – was this a fair thing to do to the girl who was selling lemonade? In real life, what would happen if you did this?
• Eddie admitting to cheating to win the Championships 30 years previously – do you think he should have lost his title?