This months selection of films at the cinema has made a massive improvement over the overall sub-par releases last month, the major one so far being the release of "The Expendables", having a powerhouse action cast and pulling in the greatest profit going by opening weekend sales. However, today I'm not reviewing "The Expendables", and this is for one key reason, but I'll get to that later on. Today's film is Scott Pilgrim vs the World, a film based upon the series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Now, this film has been met with a lot of varied criticism and once you see the film it's easy to see why; This film has a little bit of everything. You've got romance, comedy, action and drama all combined into a single movie, and every part of it is superbly written, and while the pace at times is a little iffy, it's hard not to appreciate the sheer charm that movie presents. And I'm here to review it today, so let's dig right in.
First off, a summary of the plot. Our protaganist, Scott Pilgrim, is living a fairly happy life, he's in a band and dating a pretty high school girl, until in his dreams, he encounters a strange girl, Ramona Flowers, rollerblading through and she turns up in several aspects of his life, appearing a parties and while on dates, until he bites the bullet and talks to her. While initially awkward, the two enter into a relationship until Scott is ambushed during a concert by someone declaring to be "Ramona's first evil ex-boyfriend". From then on, if Scott wants to continue dating Ramona, he has to fight and defeat her Seven Evil Exe's, while simultaneously juggling his normal life, which seems to have taken a turn from the normal ever since he encountered Ramona, and he's got to get it back together and really see what's important. From there on, it's into spoiler zone, so I'll avoid and move onto the next part.
Now we're gonna look at the characters and cast. Our male lead is the titular Scott Pilgrim, played by Michael Cera. 22-year old Scott is introduced as a bit of loser, being bass player in his friends' band, Sex Bob-Omb, in between jobs, sharing an apartment with his gay roommate, and as of recently, dating a high schooler. He's not a totally pathetic person, but he seems thoroughly... average at first glance. Cera does a fine job in this film as Scott, and while there a number of places I could suggest improvement, fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with this casting choice, and I am thoroughly happy with him. His girlfriend at movie's beginning is one Knives Chau, played by Ellen Wong, who Scott finds a satisfaction and happiness with, while Knives devlops a sort of obsession with Scott. Her whole mentality throughout the film is similar to Scott's, although where his mentality is what grows and develops throughout, Knives as
a person really grows up throughout the movie, which really shows at it's culmination. Our female lead and something of an unwilling competitor for Scott's affection, Ramona Flowers, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Ramona is shown as something of an uncaring personality initially, only appearing to give Scott a chance so that he'll leave her alone, until the movie goes on, and some of the reasons for her keeping herself aloof make themselves known, and she warms up to Scott after a while as their relationship progresses. Winstead out of these three I feel makes the best performance. She has the character down to a tee, and really brings a somewhat lifeless character to life.
The supporting cast in this film is quite possibly the best I have ever seen, and the actors all show a great degree of enthusiam for their parts. Aside from several big names that litter the cast such as Chris Evans, Mae Whitman, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzman, the various other actors that play the support cast closer to the central characters do phenominal jobs. Scott's close circle of friends, Stephen Stills, Kim Pine and Young Neil make themselves outright individuals right from the off. Stephen Stills is the self-described "talent" of Sex Bob-Omb who ends up with awful self-confidence issues just before a show. Kim Pine is the cynical, very pessimistic drummer of the band who has known Scott since High School, Young Neil is something of a fan of the band who lets them practice at his house. The support character who absolutely steals the show is Scott's gay roommate Wallace Wells, portrayed by Keiran Culkin, who acts as something of Scott's mentor, is at times absolutely shameless, at one point steals Scott's sister's boyfriend at Scott's concert. I had worries about this the second I saw Keiran Culkin on the cast list, as Wallace is one of my favourite characters from the graphic novel, but he blew me away with how well he actually pulled it off.
The acting throughout the film is consistently great. Cera and Winstead offer very convincing performances, and excellently carry the gravity of any scene, should the scene actually require, and can actually be suprisingly funny. Cera manages to act very well as something of a geeky loser, but the reality is that Scott Pilgrim is a jerk. While he is essentially a nice guy, the way he acts and how he handles things really demonstrate the emotional immaturity of the character, creating a really interesting devolpment of both himself and Ramona. Ramona on the other hand, as more and more exes bite the dust seems to become more and more unlikeable, and even Scott himself sees this. Of course, in the graphic novels, this is fleshed out much more than what the movie could realistically shown us, but it's still really interesting to watch. The first scene which Cera and Winstead share at a party is absolutely priceless, as it shows just how much of an idiot Scott really is, considering he uses the same line on both Knives and Ramona, both of them reacting in two very different ways.
Now we go to the technical point. The editing in this game was cranked up to the max to give this film a very similar feel to the graphic novels. There are cuts that resemble comic panels, sound effects written on such as "PHWOOOOM", and even little notes next to each character as they appear giving small description and ratings to humourous effect. At some points there's even a narrator who chirps in to give the background information on a scene. All this is done flawlessly without interfering with the actual scene taking place. For example, when we cut to Sex Bob-Omb's concert, a note pops up telling the location with the note: 'This place is a toilet'. There is a distinct style of humour that permeates this picture with is both subtle and in your face comedy mixing up and appearing when the situation requires. Some lines are cringeworthy, but in a good way, not the way that makes you just cry for the writers, but you laugh at how bad they are. You can't pity a director whose willing to poke fun at his own movie for the audience's entertainment. There are a ton of little references and jokes made in relation to old video games, such as the very opening. As the camera pans towards the house the guys are in, you can hear a faint music cue from The Legend of Zelda opening, infitting with the films tagline of 'an epic of epic epicness.' All these little touches and placements in the background, and the execution of the fight scenes in the small details and general appearance make this one of the most visually appeasing films I have seen this year.
Since this is an adaptation film, you are obviously going to loose a lot of detail that gets covered in the comics. For example, while I don't wish to ruin anything, Nega-Scott is handled so differently you will not know how to react, and lines seem to come from the 'wrong' character, so to speak, but if this film were to attempt to cover everything in the way it is in the comics, you'd end up with a convoluted, undefinable movie like "The Last Airbender". The thing is, this is a movie, and it just can't acheive in the space of 2 hours what a comic or a book or a video game can in the spae of far longer to develop its characters and story. As far as this is concerned, this movie has done a fantastic job.
I'm in lesbians with this movie. There is something here that almost everyone can enjoy, the comedy is hilarious, the story is gripping, engaging but still doesn't take itself so serious you can't enjoy it. This film could have been so bad, with 7 enemies made clear right from the start we were gonna have 7 fight sequences minimum. They could have been so repetitive, and so boring, but the chereography was amazing and varied, and that's the key; Variation. There's always something different to see with this movie, and watching it alone is an experience. All I can do is highly recommend this film to anyone who plays video games, who has read the graphic novels, or anyone who wants a genuinely unique cinematic experience. It's also great for dates.
Now, if you'll recall, I mentioned a reason why I'm looking at this film instead of "The Expendables". This reason is clued in by the title of this site. My job is to give you the low down on titles you should make the choice to go and see, and The Expendables simply doesn't fill that criteria. It's a "safe" movie. What do I mean by this? You go into this movie knowing that it's going to be an action filled gung-ho powerhouse of excitement, and while you don't know what the movie is about, you know what to go into to expect. Scott Pilgrim is a wild card title; you go into this movie on a gamble because you will most likely have no idea what it is really about. THAT is what I'm here to do. Of course you're going to see "The Expendables", but you don't know about this film, and I'm going to highlight this and recommend it to anyone I see. So once again this is White signing off, and hoping this helped you make the White Choice
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