Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

If you're wondering how the rest of the review here is going to go, here's a hint:  Scott won, the World lost.  This may indeed be the Best Movie of the Year.

There was a good chance that this movie might have sucked, and sucked badly.  From the trailers I could see several features that might have either been awesome or completely horrible:  eternal dweeb Michael Cera is a the lead, the fight scenes are a mix of cartoon action and live action, and tons of video game clichés are thrown in as a metaphor for a coming of age story.  Michael Cera has been in as many good movies as bad, and his "lovable loser" act is getting a little stale I think.  This "real life cartoon" style has been done before and never well:  see 2008's incomprehensible disaster of a superhero movie, "The Spirit" if you want proof.  (Actually don't see that movie, its beyond awful and seemingly by design.)  And the video game effects could make this movie little more than a masturbatory byproduct of the "hardcore gamer" tribe, filled with constant game references so that people outside the subculture are purposefully excluded from the experience*.  Well thank God that all that was avoided.

Indeed this movie is "an epic of epic epicness" like the poster here claims.  Funny, silly, cartoony, exciting, and at times, partly cloudy.  The movie is a mixed-up jumble of video game tropes, awesome Indie rock, and adolescent relationships.  If its occurred to you that those three things have roughly nothing to do with each other, then you're absolutely correct.  But that's Scott Pilgrim's life for you, and he's the guy this movie is about.  And like so many odd combinations, it makes a perfect harmony of flavor.  Think "Fooly Cooly":  coming of age, bass rifts, and giant robot anime mixed together.

"Scott Pilgrim vs. Predator" is based on the comic series "Scott Pilgrim vs. Whatever", and is the latest entry in Hollywood's evil scheme to one day adapt every single comic book into a movie.  Nobody is entirely sure why Hollywood needs to adapt every comic book, even a relatively obscure one like this one (I never heard of it until recently).  Most of the time the picks they make are random and make for lousy unnecessary films we all are best foretting very quickly, like "The Spirit".  But I'll admit this is a good choice here for a movie.  "Scott Pilgrim vs. Whatever" bases a lot of its ideas on old NES game, and curiously enough, this movie is being made into a game.  So that's Video Games -> Comic Strip -> Movie -> Video Game.  There's also a short cartoon being made as well.

Soon enough, I think we'll be seeing "Scott Pilgrim the Novel", "Scott Pilgrim the Radio Drama", and "Scott Pilgrim the Opera" just so that this Scott Pilgrim craze can become the Lord of All Media.  Fear its mighty adaptivity!!!

"Scott Pilgrim vs. Mechagozilla" takes place in the wacky video game fantasy world known as... Toronto, Canada.  Scott (Michael Cera) and his various odd friends/bandmates/exes/homosexual roommates make up the rather large cast that inhabits this wacky world.  While they're out trying to become rock stars or get into the wildest man sandwich known to man, Scott is simply out to find love (he doesn't really do much of anything else, being essentially a complete loser).  He's so full of love that he's actually got himself invovled with two girls:  a cute Asian highschooler and the girl of his dreams.  I mean "girl of his dreams literary, the many-colored Ramona Flowers (played by that chick from "Final Destination 3") actually does appear in several of Scott's dreams.  There really isn't much of a question which Scott is going to choose, since if he went with the highschool girl, it would kinda defeat the purpose of the plot.  Ramona has a little problem, she's being tailed by a League of Seven Evil Exes who will murder anybody who dares date her over them.  So now Scott has to defeat all seven while dealing with his own ex problems in ridiculous over-the-top epic duels to the death, which always end in a flurry of coins (i.e. points).

So this movie is actually kinda weird when you get right down to it, but the plot is all fairly standard.  When you get past the silly cartoon sound effects and fairly awesome battle scenes, this movie is just a romantic comedy.  Its about Scott and Ramona dealing with the romantic loose ends through a visual metaphor of kicking the asses of former flames.  Of course, the movie never does quite explain why all of a sudden Scott or any of Ramona's evil exes actually can all of a sudden take silly amounts of damage, or cut through mooks with a sword of fire, or head butt a man so hard he explodes into coins.  There are no radioactive bugs giving superpowers or anything like that.  I mean, Scott Pilgrim is Canadian, when has Canada ever kicked ass**?  At least we can take comfort in this:  Hollywood's movie magic has reached the point that even Michael Cera can be an action star.

The constant metaphorical combat fits quite nicely in this movie's original style, which as noted has more than a little bit of cartoon timing and visual silliness.  Comic book sound effects pop out like we're trapped in the Adam West Batman show, and they often interact with the real world.  Flashbacks occur entirely in the unique art style of the comic strip, mixing real life and cartoon in an intriguing way.  Its rare that any adaptation actually visually aknowledge the story's roots.  Imagine if in Christopher Nolan's "Batman 3" all the flashbacks took place inside a comic page.  But the movie is so well acted, its fight scenes so strangely fluid and fun, that I don't actually wish this to be a cartoon.  That was something that really surprised me, as I was expecting to be vaguely disappointed with this movie's style and instead wish it was simply a game.

Of course, I don't expect fans of the comics to be entirely pleased.  Fans are never pleased, its in their nature.  As a matter of fact, late in the film an extra in a crowd shouts out "the comic was better!"  Gotta love a movie that can never take itself seriously.

So if I had to lay down some complaints (and unfortunatley I do) it would have to be with Michael Cera himself.  Scott's initial meeting with Ramona is so geeky, so lame, and so pathetic that you just watch to squeeze yourself into your popcorn bag until the scene is over.  It never is made quite clear what Ramona sees in Scott, him being only a tad bit less pathetic than most of Michael Cera's characters.  The highschool girl likes him for his awesome band and that he's technically an adult... which also makes their relationship creepy (the movie doesn't hesitate to point this out).  But Scott and Ramona have a bit of chemistry, I think, and I don't spend the entire movie asking "what does she see in him?", only the first ten minutes.

Also, I hate to bring this up, but the fact that there are Seven Evil Exes made me very worried about halfway through.  By that point we had seen two awesome fights, but we had five more to go.  Would this movie be five hours long?  Well, the solution here is to start skimping out after the third fight.  No. 4 is relatively short (though no less awesome), and No. 5 and No. 6 are an ultra-short and pretty lame double battle - who don't even get names!  The fight is weird, really short, and not very good.  If the fifth and sixth guys were going to be so insignifigant, you might as well have cut them out and saved us five minutes.  Five Evil Exes fits much better in a two hour movie.

I mean, yeah, the jokes fall flat occasionally, and it does sometimes get a little too hip for its own good (the Seinfeld Theme plays at one point for no reason other than for people to giggle at the reference).  But its still really good.  It could have been awful in the hands of lesser film makers, but the director here, Edgar Wright, finds the right line.  I can't explain what that line is, but Wright found it.

But those two complaints are minor really, they do nothing to soften my love for this movie.  I changed my wallpaper to Scott Pilgrim.  I got the movie's music stuck in my head:  Listen!  This movie was great, go see it now.  Enjoy yourself.  Even Armond White liked it!  ...If only to insult Quentin Tarantino, but he still liked it!  And considering the last time me and him agreed on a movie was "Coraline", that's not a bad thing.

However... will is Scott Pilgrim man enough to defeat the manly explosion of manliness known as "The Expendables"?  I'll just have to go see that next and find out!  See you all next time.

ツ

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* I once saw a movie on Bob Dylan called "I'm Not There" which was nominally a biopic of the prolific counterculture musician (also notable for having the Worst Singing Voice in the History of the Universe).  Instead of recounting his life and legacy for the next generation, the movie was a long web of complex reference and coded metaphors that only a life-long Bob Dylan scholar would even begin to understand - not to mention that it was like watching five movies at once, only one of which was even slightly decent.  This movie wasn't made for the public, it was made for a clique.  If you're not a member, this movie won't make any sense.  Film is an egalitarian medium, you shouldn't make a movie with the intention of excluding most of the world.

** The Korean War last time I checked.  Serious ass was last kicked in WWII.  Since then Canada has mostly been America's tenant, living in the attic.  Of course, we're the ones with the band, the girlfriend, and the real job, Canada just works part-time at Blockbuster and plays a lot of World of Warcraft.  He also picks his nose, loser.