So, Here Are the Most Ridiculous Bits in Pixels 

Caption: That\'s Ashley Benson in the middle. She barely speaks in the movie.

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comes out today. It’s, um, OK I guess? Let’s put it this way: If you the nostalgia factor of CGI Centipedes and Tetris blocks attacking Earth appeals to you, you’ll probably like it. If your tolerance for Sandler and Kevin James’ brand of humor is pretty low and you don’t like to see Peter Dinklage underused, you might not.

But should you spend 15 bucks or whatever to see it? (I mean, it’s still a videogame movie starring Tyrion Lannister in a pretty wack mullet.) The answer to that is: Consider everything else you could be doing with your life—rewatching

videogames—and you’ll see doing anything is probably better than seeing this mediocre movie. It’s not that it’s a bad comedy—it’s just that you’re laughing for all the wrong reasons.

Like, for example, the fact that Kevin James plays the president. Or that Adam Sandler plays a Geek Squad-type guy, which is a role he probably would’ve rocked IRL if he hadn’t been a good comedian many years ago. Or that Sandler gets himself a romantic subplot that’s completely unnecessary. Or that Josh Gad makes out with a videogame character played by Ashley Benson. (Long story.)

And that’s just the beginning. There are more than a few things in director Chris Columbus’ movie that are, well, just kind of weird. Some are fun weird. Some are bad weird. Some are just weird weird—and not just because the idea that aliens would see our videogames and take it as a sign of war is weird. Here are a few strange things that jumped out at us.

, James plays Cooper, who goes from being a hapless doofus in 1982 to being a hapless doofus in the present day. In the White House. It’s never really explained who voted for this guy to become president (though there is a running gag that his approval ratings are abysmal), but hey, he was the King of Queens so why not the Leader of the Free World?

No, we don’t mean that literally. But once it becomes obvious that aliens are attacking Earth using giant videogame characters, the government turns to gamers to save humanity. One of them is Eddie (Peter Dinklage), who beat Sandler’s Brenner in a games championship in ’82. At the time of the alien invasion he is in prison, and when the government asks for his help one of the things he asks for in return is an audience with Serena Williams and Martha Stewart in the Lincoln Bedroom. (Sigh.) Williams, in a cameo as herself, ultimately agrees to be his date to a party because “they promised me an island if I did this” but, ugh. Serena Williams has 21 Grand Slam titles—not to mention she’s, you know, a person—how did she become a prize? Oh, wait, is this because life is all a videogame?

Jane Krakowski Only Has, Like, Two Lines

, is in this movie. She’s the First Lady. It’s very possible you wouldn’t know this, though. She’s been pretty absent from the promotional push for the film. She also has, by my count, one or maybe two lines in the whole thing. The whole point of Jane Krakowski is that she has pretty impeccable delivery. Why she was hired for this role and then given nothing to do we may never know.

Josh Gad Sings ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’

OK, this kind of makes sense. Josh Gad, who plays gamer and conspiracy theorist Ludlow, has a musical theater background that goes all the way back to his time on Broadway doing

. And, yes, that particular Tears for Fears classic is about world domination. But why the socially awkward Ludlow decides to get up on stage and belt out this song in the middle of a gala is beyond me.

If you’ve seen the trailer for this movie, you know that Pac-Man’s creator Toru Iwatani shows up to try to talk some sense into his “son” amidst the videogame war. But that’s not actually Iwatani, it’s actor Denis Akiyama. The real Iwatani is in the movie, though. He plays “Electric Dream Factory Repairman” (aka an arcade game repairman).

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