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.

Full disclosure: I like Coheed and Cambria so much that I got their logo tattooed on my wrist. I know that that was a retarded thing to do, but I was younger and drunker then, so whatever. I have no regrets. Despite my longstanding fandom of the band, I had pretty low expectations for their new disc, Year Of The Black Rainbow -- they’ve been slickening up their sound pretty much ever since their debut (The Second Stage Turbine Blade), and their previous record (2007′s No World For Tomorrow) bore almost no relation to the adventurous, weird sounds these guys first captivated me with when I saw them open for Thrice at Metro in ’03. It was a corporate steamer, filled with power ballads and big soft hooks for all the mouth-breathers that still listen to Q101.

But damned if Year of The Black Rainbow doesn’t find them recharged -- instead of the typical symphonic intro to begin the album, there’s some weird industrial clatter that suggests something has gone very, very wrong. This is (of course) the beginning of a whole new story for the band -- never content with mere concept albums, these guys have created an entire mythology (supplemented by graphic novels and lots of hilarious amateur analysis on internet message boards). Here’s another disclosure: I have never, even for one second, paid attention to the storyline behind any of this. I just want the riffs, man. And, good news, there are plenty of white-hot licks to go around here, with Claudio Sanchez and Travis Stever playing dual leads on most of the songs. There’s so much flashy guitar action here that I briefly contemplated basing this entire review around a claim that C&C are my generation’s Metallica (inasmuch as my generation needs a Metallica -- the old model is still chugging along pretty smoothly), but that would be mostly bullshit.

Year Of The Black Rainbow would, however, be Coheed’s “black” album -- stripped down and heavier than fuck, without any elaborate song suites or fluff. Since the story that drove the band’s back catalog is (I think?) officially closed, we can isolate those records as the band’s White Unicorn period -- i.e., galloping neo-prog mixed with elements of fantasy and sci-fi. This new material is distinctly different -- darker, harder, downright merciless when it really gets cooking. Black Unicorn shit, in other words.

My only complaint is that eventually the disc gets a little bogged down and samey in the middle, but that’s been a complaint I’ve had about everything these guys have ever done. It’s all about the good stuff, and the good stuff is great enough to support the weight of the band’s occasional excesses. Do I recommend this to you? Yes, of course, and I don’t even need to qualify that with a warning about every person’s individual tolerance for goofy shit. There’s nothing silly about Year Of The Black Rainbow -- these guys have been singing about epic battles forever, but now it feels like the fight is really on. Forward, then, into the black-lit abyss!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR_Nxk2BpWM

Coheed and Cambria:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Last.fm
• Cobalt & Calcium (Fansite)

After attempting to debunk how Tom Muller did some of his work for Wired magazine I decided to ask him a few additional questions such as  where he gets his inspiration from, and how he got involved in graphic design. Here’s what he had to say…

AssaultBLOG: You mention in pretty good detail how you got out of college in Antwerp and were sort of poking around the yellow pages looking for a “real world” job as your father had pushed you to get into as soon as possible, and that you wanted to get into “THE COOL STUFF”. I know that looking back on college there was a few things I wish I had done differently… and was wondering if you could go back would there be anything you would do differently?

Hmm… Not really. I had a great time in college actually. I didn’t always see eye to eye with my teachers (who does?), but overall I had a good experience; and especially my graduation project was something I had complete control over and that kind of kick started my professional career. The only thing I’d change if I could go back is pay more attention to design history.

AB: Are there any somewhat non-traditional or unusual places you look for design influence?

Anything and everything really. I don’t go looking for specific things to get inspiration. Can be anything – something I see, read, hear… very random.

AB: Most designers struggle with knowing when a project is complete, and personally I know I always have a hard time deciding when a design is done–Can you think of one or two projects in the past ten years in that you were most satisfied with the results? Was there ever a really challenging project that you had a hard time nailing down ideas, or deciding when a design was finished?

To be honest I’m really happy with the stuff I’m currently doing. That’s not to say that my older work has lost its value, but looking back I can see the errors and me struggling a bit finding my way and style if you will. I’d say the work from 2004 onwards is the work I’m most proud of, where I feel that I finally got into a direction I’m happy with – with the Mam Tor Publishing and Ashley Wood projects in particular.

AB: You mention in your blog that you were highly experimental with Photoshop in its early stages ten years ago when it had a 99 layer limit. Since your beginning use with Photoshop has there been one feature, or technique that you can remember learning that totally changed the way you work and design in the software?

Well, “highly experimental” is mildly overstating that I basically didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning and just playing around finding my way around the application and being very impressed with lens flare effect and the like.

I think the computer as a whole changed my way of working, because I got into it pretty late (I was 24 when I finally got my own Mac at home) and used to draw and paint more. So going digital was a complete change for me.

AB: The design work on hellomuller.com spans a broad range of mediums–is there one particular medium that you’ve found you enjoy the most and if so why?

Its all of them. Its all graphic design, just applied to a different medium – be it in print or on screen. I like both, thats why I do them. Although I love doing web design, I need to be able to do some print work to counter balance looking at html and work at 72dpi all day.

Being able to switch between designing a site, or a book, or a logo is what keeps everything fresh and interesting. I don’t want to be doing the same thing all the time.

AB: Are there any mediums you would like to transition into in the future that you may have not already tackled?

Designing a title sequence for a feature film would be interesting to do I think. And comics/graphic novels of course. That one is always high on the list, its just a matter of finding the time and putting my money where my mouth is.

AB: I know you recently launched a website collaboration with your wife…what is it like to collaborate with her, and do you find that collaboration in general makes for better design? Or is there a perfect formula for the number of “chefs in the kitchen” where the design work tends to turn out the best?

Collaborating with her is great. Design-wise we really click in terms of what we like, how we approach a problem and execute it. She’s much more technical than me, so when we’re designing a book for example more often than not she’ll end up designing the actual guts of the book while I play with the more superficial stuff like logos etc. She’s also really good in cutting through the design bullshit and go for effortlessly simple solutions, whereas I’m always trying to come up with needlessly complex visuals and over design it to the point where a seemingly random dot is actually placed in some grid I made up. Just for that dot.

AB: Do you feel it’s important for designers to do personal work and use their skills to address social and economic issues as well as to keep their own voice?

Well, one aspect of being a graphic designer is that you have to realize you’re working in a service industry, and that its our job to communicate other people’s messages. Whether that’s for a global corporation or the local salvation army.

On the other hand I think its very important that designers initiate personal work, if only to keep things interesting and grow creatively.

Relevant Links:

• Comic Book Tattoo – The graphic anthology of the year
  
• Hello Muller
• Tom’s Blog
• Mr. and Mrs. M (Tom and his wife’s site)