Assault @ The Movies!: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

August 13th, 2010 by Jere / Comment on this post

The best way to put Scott Pilgrim vs The World into words:

1. take this review (or any)

2. Remove spaces between words

3. Place exclamation points between every word; between every syllable if a word is more than 4 syllables long

Voila!

Scott Pilgrim vs The World is ostensibly an Edgar Wright-directed movie based on Brian Lee O’Malley’s comic about the titular character finding new love in one Ramona Flowers and fighting her 7 evil exes. Really, it’s a frame to hang a bunch of funny jokes, epic scenes, quirky characters, moments, pop culture references, and general amusements. Everything moves so blazingly fast, there’s literally not a moment to spare luxuriating with these characters, which is kind of rare for a comedy. If nothing else, it’s unique, even compared to the comic upon which it’s based. It’s an intoxicating rush, this movie. Even when it’s not perfect, Wright has hit on something delightful here.

I ate a bigass pack of Twizzlers during the movie. Even without that, I would’ve felt like I crammed my face full of candy.The screen pops with bright colors, and this is the second movie this summer (after Inception) that manages some mind-blowing visuals without the crutch of 3D. All the unrealistic stuff – the comic-esque action lines and onomatopoeia, sudden and unexplained kung-fu fight sequences, sword fights, ninjas – all feel organic to this movie’s world. To question “Why does the Vegan have telekinetic powers?” is to miss the point that it’s silly enough to make sense in the world of this movie.

Unsurprisingly for a movie based on a six-comic series, the pacing is awkward. The first twenty minutes, before the evil exes stuff, moves swiftly: scenes change suddenly; geographic locations transition nonsensically yet to a wonderful effect; a scene might start literal and end a state of mind. When the actual meat of the movie – those evil exes! – kicks in, the movie slows down considerably, giving the overall film a top-heavy feeling. Packing by necessity six fights into the same movie (a pair of exes are twins) makes all of them feel less consequential (hilarious as they each individually are). This was never going to be Way of the Dragon or anything, but the movie ignores the metaphor of fighting the exes to value jokes above all else.

That said, those jokes are pretty consistently amusing considering they come flying at the audience, several every minute. One-liners are everywhere, popups provide background and commentary, physical gags, censorship gags… It’s all in here, and the cast carries all of it adroitly.

Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim as the Michael Cera of the public’s imagination: awkward, charming, utterly adorable, definitely dumb with optional utter stupidity for a little extra (here it’s set to “yes, full stupidity”). His (main) love Ramona Flowers is played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead with great guarded vulnerability. There’s not much for her to do aside from explain background for the exes, look mortified when they show up, and treat Cera’s aloofness with amusement. Still, she holds down the role believably and sympathetically. Or, at least, as believable as one can be in a movie where another character literally gets the highlights punched out of her hair.

All of this would be nowhere without the supporting cast. Most notably, Kieran Culkin steals all his scenes as Scott’s gay roommate Wallace. In a movie where you can miss a million things because every scene is packed so tightly with plot, allusions, and jokes, he brings attention to himself effortlessly. Same can be said for Brandon Routh, who’s shown himself to be a hilarious supporting actor in comedies. Something tells me Superman Returns would have been greatly improved if it was lighter-hearted.

Strangely, though, it’s Ellen Wong as Knives Chau that arguably is the movie’s emotional center, or at least the film works hard to make you feel really, really bad for her. As Scott’s “fake 17-year-old girlfriend,” Pre-Ramona, she gets dumped early and spends most of the rest of the movie getting dumped on, mostly as Scott’s too chickenshit to really talk to her after the breakup or when her favorite band ignores her. It’s in these moments, where the camera lingers on the absolutely crushed look on her face, that the movie works on an emotional level.

In fact, it’s the movie’s lone touch of subtlety that Scott’s exes, periphery characters all, get the most time to emote. It’s an acknowledgment that this is Pilgrim’s story and that we’re ignoring reality for the sake of fun. Similarly, these moments hint at something more grounded and real happening to these characters. But then, it’s more fun to see people exploding into coins and fighting; it was a smart decision to not dwell.

As for the fighting, bravo to the fight choreographers and Wright’s directing. Even with the editing and fighting style being fast-paced, the audience can actually follow the action. Each fight has its own flavor, too, which I won’t spoil by explaining. Suffice to say each ex is easily identifiable with a fitting fight to match. Wisely, none of the fights are given that much weight because, c’mon, like Scott’s not going to get to Evil Ex #7, Gideon Graves (played by Jason Schwarzmann’s time-tested and perfected smarmy motherfucker persona). It’s the right choice, though just once I’d like to see a movie where the protagonist has to fight ten guys and gets killed by the fifth.

Here at Assault, we’re primarily a music site, so I will comment on that. The score is ingenious, using 8-bit sounds to create ambiance. The bands sound perfect for what they are: Sex Bob-Omb crackles like a garage band of young people. The Clash at the Demonhead, singing a song donated by Metric, sound like pros on the rise. Music is yet another stylistic flourish that this movie gets right.

Hyper-kinetic movies like this one are not for everybody. Two years ago, Speed Racer faced a similar conundrum and turned up a minor cult movie (even if it’s a one-man cult that only includes this reviewer). Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is stronger, though, with a more eager-to-please disposition that relies on its humor to make up to demolishing the audience’s brains with its density of sheer things happening. It’s a delightful kind of demolition, though, and artful in its construction. There’s something miraculous in the way it packs so much into so little space. Even if it’s not an unequivocal success, that’s something worth admiring that makes the movie well worth seeing.

B-B-B-BONUS TRACK: COMIC NERD CRITIQUES

So, I’ve also read the Scott Pilgrim comic, but I tried to stay away from comparing the two in the main review. Here are the stray observations (SPOILERS ahead, also nerdfuckery):

“The book is better than the movie” is a cliche that is vaguely true here. The comics have the time to stretch out; what takes approximately a week (maybe less) in the movie takes about a year in the comic. Scott and Ramona make more sense, and when their relationship exits the honeymoon phase, it holds more weight.
Similarly, the central themes of baggage, jealousy and badly-ended romances are stronger in the comics. While the main focus is Scott’s gauntlet through Ramona’s exes, it mirrors Ramona having to fight Knives and Scott’s ex, Envy.
The movie one-ups the books by not even trying to explain the subspace, where Ramona travels through Scott’s head.
It’s fascinating where the plots of the books and movie differ, yet certain lines (“He has a way of getting into my head”) show up in both.
+25 for getting my favorite line from volume 4 – “You had a sexy phase?” – into the movie.

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About the Author

Jere is not from Chicago. Nor is he from Parts Unknown. But he sure loves to hear things. Follow him on Twitter!

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