It can't be easy, adapting source material to make a movie. On the one hand, you have the fans of the source, no doubt eager to mine your film for the smallest variation from their beloved tome and subsequently rip you to shreds, and on the other, people who have no clue what the movie they've just paid 15 bucks to watch is based on, and don't really care: they just want to be entertained. So it's kind of a minor miracle that Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World manages to take the six graphic novels it's based on and, well, hyper-adapts them, while still remaining quite faithful. Much of the dialogue and action is lifted directly from the books, but translated in a way that makes you think that this material should've always been a film, somehow. But while the strengths of the comics are heightened in the film, their weaknesses are also exaggerated. It's these weaknesses that will ultimately determine your reaction to this film, but as a pure piece of hyperactive pop culture-ness, there's a lot to like here.
If you've been living on the moon and somehow have escaped the barrage of marketing materials for this movie, a quick recap: the eponymous Scott Pilgrim ( Michael Cera) sees Ramona Flowers ( Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in his dreams, and subsequently at a party, and immediately falls for her. Hard. To the point where, learning that she delivers packages for Amazon (I wasn't aware that Amazon had their own delivery people?), arranges a meet-cute by ordering a package and simply waiting for it to arrive. Soon enough, it's revealed that she has seven evil exes, all of whom he must defeat in battle before he can earn the right to date her permanently.
And thus begins a series of what are, effectively, boss fights. The director, Edgar Wright, has said that he intended each of these fights to reflect escalating conflicts over the course of a video game, and thus we start with the easily-dispatched Matthew Patel ( Satya Bhabha), who fights Scott in a grungy rock club, and work our way up to Gideon Gordon Graves ( Jason Schwartzman), the commandant and founder of the League of Evil Exes. The fights get progressively slicker as we go along, as well as progressively over-the-top; the style here is a gigantic melange of video game tropes (defeated exes melt into a spray of coins) and 60's Batman-style visual onomatopoeia, where someone getting hit will have a gigantic "SMAK" appear over his head, and so on.
It's a bit dizzying at times, but Wright's touch is so adept that you can't help but enjoy yourself; it helps that there's some genuine affection for the references that he throws out. In lesser hands, this all could've come across as a big-budget attempt to appeal to fans of 4chan memes (the tagline "an epic of epic epicness" still makes me a bit nauseous), and there's still a bit too much of the "wink wink, nudge nudge, aren't we all special for communally recognizing this cool reference" feel to it, but, if nothing else, Wright deserves credit for not holding anything back. There are some great touches, like the battle of the bands that evolves into a battle between two giant, animated avatars, and the revelation that veganism is the source of all of Brandon Routh's powers.
But although the film is as visually arresting as anything you're likely to see in theaters this year, it's a shame that more effort wasn't put into making the characters a bit more likable; they really do come across as simplistic as your stereotypical comic book character. Scott, for instance, madly falls in love with Ramona despite having never talked to her before, to the point where he neglects to even break up with his current girlfriend before pursuing her; an act of douchiness that makes him somewhat difficult to like, and that's not even mentioning his overall resemblance to a five-year-old in his mannerisms.
Ramona, for her part, barely seems worth pursuing as a love interest; she's a mostly sour individual who rarely smiles--it's as if Scott has taken a fancy to the world's youngest truck-stop diner waitress, someone who seems to never get past regarding him as a new toy. A bit more time fleshing out these characters would've been welcome, but instead, we're left bouncing around among the dizzying cast of characters, whose number includes not only the seven evil exes, but Scott's roommate, his two band-mates, their roadie, his sister, his current girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend, his barista (!), and assorted hangers-on. It's kind of an overstuffed movie, and you get the sense that more judicious cuts to the source material would've been welcome if the extra time had been used to shed more light on the relationship that's supposed to be at the center of the film.
Given the characterization issues, it's worth noting that the large ensemble cast does a generally good job of bringing their characters to life, given that many of them have mere minutes of screen time. I'm not Michael Cera's biggest fan, but given that the Scott Pilgrim character already exhibits a good number of the various Cera-isms that drive me up the wall in other movies of his, he's less annoying here than he has been in a while, which is a good thing, since he's in almost every scene. Winstead is as stolid as you'd expect Ramona Flowers to be, although that's more of a problem with the character than her performance. The rest of the cast is generally good; even the normally creepy Kieran Culkin manages to be winning as Scott's put-upon gay roommate.
Honestly, it strikes me as kind of futile to try and write anything about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World; this is a film that lives in the visual realm to a point that it almost defies textual description, in much the same manner as some of Tony Scott's more frenetically edited films. As a 30-year-old, I can confidently say that I'm in the gray, age-gated, demilitarized zone that separates those who will find this film endlessly entertaining and those who will find it similar to the sensation of sitting in an airplane seat that's being kicked by a toddler for two hours. Honestly, I find it kind of both: it has a charming, hyperkinetic sensibility to it, and instantly launches itself into the discussion of "best video game movie ever made" (despite not being based on a video game), but at the same time, the character interactions are as shallow as you'd probably find in the most perfunctory of videogame plots. These characterization issues don't quite overshadow the accomplishments of Edgar Wright, however, and even if Scott Pilgrim brings to mind that phrase "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", it can safely be said that you've never seen sound and fury quite as unique as what's on display here.
And thus begins a series of what are, effectively, boss fights. The director, Edgar Wright, has said that he intended each of these fights to reflect escalating conflicts over the course of a video game, and thus we start with the easily-dispatched Matthew Patel ( Satya Bhabha), who fights Scott in a grungy rock club, and work our way up to Gideon Gordon Graves ( Jason Schwartzman), the commandant and founder of the League of Evil Exes. The fights get progressively slicker as we go along, as well as progressively over-the-top; the style here is a gigantic melange of video game tropes (defeated exes melt into a spray of coins) and 60's Batman-style visual onomatopoeia, where someone getting hit will have a gigantic "SMAK" appear over his head, and so on.
But although the film is as visually arresting as anything you're likely to see in theaters this year, it's a shame that more effort wasn't put into making the characters a bit more likable; they really do come across as simplistic as your stereotypical comic book character. Scott, for instance, madly falls in love with Ramona despite having never talked to her before, to the point where he neglects to even break up with his current girlfriend before pursuing her; an act of douchiness that makes him somewhat difficult to like, and that's not even mentioning his overall resemblance to a five-year-old in his mannerisms.
Ramona, for her part, barely seems worth pursuing as a love interest; she's a mostly sour individual who rarely smiles--it's as if Scott has taken a fancy to the world's youngest truck-stop diner waitress, someone who seems to never get past regarding him as a new toy. A bit more time fleshing out these characters would've been welcome, but instead, we're left bouncing around among the dizzying cast of characters, whose number includes not only the seven evil exes, but Scott's roommate, his two band-mates, their roadie, his sister, his current girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend, his barista (!), and assorted hangers-on. It's kind of an overstuffed movie, and you get the sense that more judicious cuts to the source material would've been welcome if the extra time had been used to shed more light on the relationship that's supposed to be at the center of the film.
Honestly, it strikes me as kind of futile to try and write anything about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World; this is a film that lives in the visual realm to a point that it almost defies textual description, in much the same manner as some of Tony Scott's more frenetically edited films. As a 30-year-old, I can confidently say that I'm in the gray, age-gated, demilitarized zone that separates those who will find this film endlessly entertaining and those who will find it similar to the sensation of sitting in an airplane seat that's being kicked by a toddler for two hours. Honestly, I find it kind of both: it has a charming, hyperkinetic sensibility to it, and instantly launches itself into the discussion of "best video game movie ever made" (despite not being based on a video game), but at the same time, the character interactions are as shallow as you'd probably find in the most perfunctory of videogame plots. These characterization issues don't quite overshadow the accomplishments of Edgar Wright, however, and even if Scott Pilgrim brings to mind that phrase "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", it can safely be said that you've never seen sound and fury quite as unique as what's on display here.
