DVD REVIEW:
"SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD" ☆☆☆
I wanted to catch this movie in theaters. But I didn't. I was 24. Out of a job. Living rent free. And didn't have a working car. But I'll quip more on that later...
Like the ditzy, faint, uber-cute girly-girl who won't leave your oh-so-busy important self alone, she can't stop saying how "So very awesome, and so very super cool you are." The same can go for "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" - not the guy, the movie. About out-of-work slacker twenty-something Scott Pilgrim, who strums the bass in a meaningless band, in the meaningless winter landscape of Toronto, Canada (or "Not So Long Ago, In The Mysterious Land Of Toronto, Canada...") with his other meaningless twenty-something friends and cohorts, who also play band or otherwise work behind the counter at a coffee shop (Super Cool!), this self-absorbed Pilgrim falls head-over-heels (but predominately in Michael Cera's utter blank stare) for Ramona Flowers, the mysterious multi-colored haired new girl who works for Amazon delivery. And with roller stakes! And as impish, dorkish, naive Scott somehow woos the unwooable Romana, he must fight off the "The League of Evil Exes" in a Super Smash Bros. Melee-style to the death in the ultimate video game lovers movie paradise, for Nintendo and Atari lovers alike, of techno music intros, bleeping sound effects, old 8-bit game graphics, and all of it swimming and dazzled-up in new, super cool, way high-tide CGI as Scott Pilgrim has to defeat each of Ramona's Evil's in that all-too mesmerizing video game battle, leveled-up to the max like anything you would play in Mortal Combat. And those fights are pretty cool, pretty nifty, pretty snazzy, pretty zippy, so much doggone fun that this movie flies through it's many fights and visual sight gags of 1-ups, strumming "D-D-D-'s," kissy "♥-♥-♥-s," coin exploding, and KAPOWS!, that there isn't a dull moment in the whole thing. You will enjoy the hell out of "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World." It's assurdly impossible. I dare you not to.
I'm not much of a gamer, but I've played those older ones. From Mario to Sonic to Duck Hunter, to the newer, now older stuff like Legend of Zelda and Banjo Kazooie. Not any of the very newer, graphics-heavy, one-person shooters or muli-player violent, gun-blasting games from Xbox to World Of War Craft-style international gaming. I never got into it those. And "Scott Pilgrim" doesn't, either. That might be why audiences didn't show up. But I think it has more to do with what stylishly talented writer/director Edgar Wright (of "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz" and "Spaced") made of his previous work, and what "Scott Pilgrim" lacks and could use to save it from Game Over, and that precarious "Continue" countdown! (Does anyone else have any more quarters!)
What I mean is maybe "Pilgrim" doesn't let up, and I don't think it should have. This film zips by so fast, and so stylishly, that every sentence, every shot, is something new, something sparkling, something cool. Like a comic book itself, the way each shot, each effect, edited together, is represented to you. So many split-screens! And thrown in for an epic movie homage the film goes from wide to wider-screen just for fun! Even when those uber-cool battles aren't going on, the zippy style doesn't. It's pretty, well, awesome. Like I said, not a dull moment. Wright is a visual genius. I think he's the best we've got (His editors might even be better). Why else have all these characters brake into fights instead of song! He even has the first Evil Ex break into a little tune when he's done kicking ass. Why not? Just for fun!
However, what was missing was the substance, the surprising heart that made the horror/comedy "Shaun of the Dead" something other than a zombie-apocalypse comedy, when it actually became kind-of scary and kind-of emotional, and it really worked. When "Hot Fuzz" became more elaborate (in a good way) when the action wasn't just American movie knock-offs a-al "Die Hard." The stakes kept getting raised, the fights kept getting more dangerous, that you somehow were on the edge of your seat like it would be in any other action movie, except we really cared about Simon Pegg's stern, gung-ho Angel and Nick Frost's simple deputy Butterman. And even Scott Pilgrim's identical in lazy, worthless Shaun, and lazier grown-up kid Ed. It's what made those movies work, be unique as they are and as popular as they were, and the way all the comedies of Judd Apatow and Ricky Gervais work now (the latter to less popularity). So, why doesn't "Scott Pilgrim" have any heart, besides the automatic visual ones that pop on screen whenever someone kisses? Where was it this time? Wright, the full-blown creative force behind this movie, and all his others (that visual genius, that ultimate tongue-in-cheek gag man!) tried for it, in what became the film's somewhat bittersweet resolution, but why did he consider all that absolute tongue-jammed-in-your-cheek stuff? It was there to an extent. But where was the real sentiment? Why were the sound and visual Nintendo homages around so much when the moments and scenes of talk and thought were less? There were those scenes, there was that emotion, but could Scott go without remarking like a naive badass? When him and Ramono get real, about her constant Seven Evil Exes, and about love, can we stop with the gag-filled subtitles?
Why was there was so much of that wit and comedy glamour, as good as it is, but not much on characters? Where was the material? Where was the story about visual panache that was so much fun to watch and to be taken up in, and that would be so much better if we could care about anyone in the movie? This is the big thing. That what's missing. "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" can't really live off the comic-book page, or the screen, or past the die-hard popularity of it's many twenty-something fans, without something to feel. Sure, a lot of youngsters still play video games. Some still even brake out the Nintendo and Saga if they still have them (or work), but gamers today are younger. The Play Stationers, the X-boxers, the Wiiers, the computer gamers. "Scott Pilgrim" is all about visual nostalgia, appealing to that crowd, when most to all gamers play the computer and are the majority of America's moviegoing audience. All of 45mil in the bank might account for that.
But, with all that aside, you twenty-something, lazy bums, do you really care? I wouldn't if not for the degrees mentioned. This movie is fun. Oh, so much fun. Not too funny, but full of visually wistful delights and that tongue-in-cheek, and younger and older actors who ham it up to perfection, that you can forgive the film for anything. And you do. There's those flying letters like a "snooze-snooze-snooze," those old, wonderful graphics, and those old, cool techno sound effects. Like most movies that want to establish a mood, the movie you're about to walk into, the Universal opening logo plays like the blocky menu of Mario and has the studio fanfare playing in that cruddy, but oh-so-wonderful video game techno. And what I think is a self-indulged comic book for those lazy twenty-somethings (You!) who might think that out-of-work bass-kid Pilgrim is their hero, "Scott Pilgrim" is an original. A unique style vision that really pays off. Of teen-dream romance and video game fights filled with lots of epic. Edgar Wright has shown his chops before, if better. Here he shows what he can do with 60mil of studio money. Sure, it didn't pay off for them, but I think that's kidding themselves. Universal lost an investment. Move on. They made a good quality movie. Some might even forgive them for "Land of the Lost."
And that terrific hammy cast. Oh man! Mary Elisabeth Winstead as mysterious, steady punkette Ramona. Alison Pill as sour band drummer Kim. Anna Kendrick as younger, but somehow older Pilgrim sister Stacey. Aubrey Plaza as glum, gossipy Julie Powell. Ellen Wong as that cutie-pie, screaming asian girl Knifes. Kieran Culkan as Pilgrim's cool, gay roommate Wallace. Brie Larson as rock star, sexy-tongued Envy. And the Evil Exes: Chris Evans, brilliant as super-slick, super-dick movie star/skateboarder Lucas Lee. Mea Whitman as angry emo Roxy. Brandon Routh as suave jackass, super-Vegan Todd. Satya Bhabha as fly, mystic Matthew Patel. And Jason Schwartzman as gentleman record producer with a nasty snare, Gideon. And Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim. Whiny Scott. Cera looks like a geek. Looks like a slacker. Looks like a whiner. He finally has a role to be typecast in! But he brings a little more. Something definitely immature, free-spirited, and even nasty about Scott Pilgrim. He didn't look the part, but he was Scott Pilgrim.
There are others. And all of them steal the show! (My favorites were Culkan as Wallace, Evans as Lucas Lee, and Wong as Knifes. She maybe because I have a crush on her now). This is the ensemble cast of the year!
Comic book movies are still the standard in movie adaptation right now. But the super-super heros. You know, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, X-Men, The Avengers, Captain America, Thor, Wolverine, on and on and on...But when those film guys try for the abstract stuff, audiences don't dig it. Besides "Scott Pilgrim" there was "Kick-Ass" earlier in the year. A better movie (it had that precious substance), and faired better, but no one really cared. A sequel, which is in the works right now, might get around. But will anyone really see it? Would anyone see a "Scott Pilgrim 2?" The economy stinks, but you all flocked to the more expense 3D flicks...
You will have fun at "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World." It didn't have a good theater stint, but it should, I hope, find that audience on DVD/Blue-Ray. And there's the huge amount of bonus extras that the movie deserves to reveal to you. Enough for you guys to revel in it's delights to no end. With all you living at home, you kids, working at Best Buy, having enough money and credit without room and board to pay, you should rake it up for sales. Maybe other, younger kids for Christmas or their birthdays. Let's hope. Put another quarter in, before that dreaded countdown. 3...2...1...Level Up!
"We Are Sex Bomb-Omb! We Are Here To Make Money And Sell Out And Stuff!"
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