Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Oh joy, another lengthy blog post about Scott Pilgrim. BUT WAIT! This is the MOVIE! TOTALLY different!

Quite simply, I loved it. As a fan of the graphic novels, I guess that’s to be expected, but I tried going in with a blanl-slate-perspective and… I still loved. Like the books, the movie will appeal to anyone of the “plugged-in” generation of the 80’s and 90’s. It embodies not only the hard-and-fast changes of pop culture that we’re so would up in, but also how we take it in stride. For instance, in one scene, Scott goes to the bathroom, where a “pee bar” appears and is drained as he… does what people usually do in the bathroom. He steps out into a high school hallway, clearly dreaming. It’s this kind of transition that is at once creative and, oddly enough, easy to follow. I saw this multiple times and none of my companions (Of which there were multiple motley crews of) raised a “WTF.” In a comic book, such a transition is easy, simply being panel-to-panel, but the movie has preserved this sense of quick-change remarkably well. Sometimes it feels like the movie is lampooning itself for this, and text will often appear, reading things like, “Later,” or “And then it was time.”

Another thing I thought was clever was in one of the Evil Ex fights, where Scott is punched in the face and a “WHAM!” sound effect appears (yes, appears) behind him. A second punch sends Scott backward, shattering the sound effect. In fact, immediately after, you can see the shards scattering onto the floor. There’s a lot of these little subtleties throughout the movie. For instance, when Scott tosses aside a “Clash at Demonhead” album, it lands in the “Beck” section. Beck did a lot of the music in the film, Sex Bob-omb in specific. Another time, when evil ex Todd Ingram is using his powers against Scott for the first time, the waves of psychic force radiating outward actually erase The Clash at Demonhead’s drummer from the wall. This is a reference to her ninja-esque ability to teleport. In fact, in that saem part of the book, it mentions that she “wants to blend into the wall like an awesome ninja.”

The filmography as a whole is very impressive. The action is contant and kinetic. Though the sound effects, etc. leap out at you, they never seem obnoxiously in-your-face. The action scenes and cinematography in general were great. Everything was very well-framed and you never got a sense of the focus being to broad or too narrow, which is an easy pitfall for many action movies.

In fact, I was very impressed with the fights. Each one is individual and fun to watch. They could have easily made them repetive and boring. I mean, hey, seven big fight scenes? Seven bosses? Isn’t the audience going to stop caring after the first 3 fisticuff-matches? Of course not. One of the ex’s fights is a cross between a Street Fighter match and a Bollywood musical. Another’s is a brawl between two bands who each spawn beasts made out of sound to fight. One of the ex’s sends in his stunt team. There’s a fast-paced ninja fight. A sword duel. A bass-off. All these fights are memorable and amazing in their own way, from a choreographical, narrative, and technical standpoint.

I’m going to address one of everyone’s biggest worries right off: Michael Cera. Most people I talked to said they liked the look of the film but were hesitant about seeing it because Cera was leading. He’s often lampooned for playing the same character in all his works, which I don’t think is a bad thing as long as the character is written that way, but Scott is very emotive and dynamic, and I too was skeptical about Michael Cera’s ability to pull it off. Luckily, Cera passes the trial with flying colors. Though he is still awkward, he is more expressive and is a perfect fit for Scott’s character.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Ramona Flowers is heavily defined within the conext of her and Scott’s relationship so I’ll talk about that here. It seems a lot of people were complaining about the relationship; Scott seems to be kind of a douche and Ramona is aloof and a little cold. Many were disappointed when they ended up together.

But maybe that’s the point. Perhaps the point was that he was making a mistake, but that this mistake would help him grow. At the beginning of the film he is… kind of a jerk, emotionally blind, “chronically enfeebled” as Stacey says. But over the course of the movie, he grows up; he matures. Ramona is the same way, she is just running from the past. In one scene that mirrors Scott talking about his and Knives’s relationship, Ramona tells him she was dating him because he was “easy.” This is the same thing that happened between Scott and Knives. Both Scott and Ramona were trying something simple and pleasant, trying to ignore the past, trying not to grow up. If you think about it, Scott’s reasons for dating Ramona are very shallow. He sees her in a dream and at a party. Boom. He thinks she’s “the one” and he two-times Knives.

Ramona, on the other hand, seems cold and distant. She’s trying to stay one step ahead of the game. Scott hits the nail right on the head when he says “I know you act aloof to avoid getting hurt.” What does she do when she’s forced to be in the same presence of Lucas Lee, one of her exes; a reminder of her past? She disappears. This seemed random and pointless at the time; it seemed like an out-of-the-blue basis for emotional tension. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense, and actually made a better case for Ramona’s characterization. If you’ll notice, Ramona usually does try and avoid the Exes whenever possible. During the Lucas Lee fight, she found the chance to slip away and escape her past again. Both Scott and Ramona display different kinds of emotional immaturity. Ramona says “Maybe I’m not the one you should be fighting for.” Scott realizes he needs to find a purpose, something greater than beating the level and getting the princess. Hence, the Power of Self-Respect. So maybe his ending up with Ramona is the best way to end it. Both have matured and grown past what ruined their relationship before. And if hey, maybe they aren’t meant for each other, but they now have the maturity to accept their mistakes and learn from them. This film is all about experiencing life, making mistakes, learning from them, getting up, getting over, and growing up.

CHARACTER STUFF (A.K.A. the movie is really well cast and here’s why):

Knives definitely had a more dominant, overarching role in the story. In the graphic novels, she is largely irrelevant by Volume 6. Which works well, since within the span of this 2-hour flick, her motivations and actions are surprisingly noncompressed. I found some subtle differences in character: in the books, Knives is a normal, relatively unremarkable teenager who is flushed out more after she and Scott break up, which could be attributed to this being one of the first real emotional experiences of her young life (She mentions to Scott that she has never kissed a boy, nor did she “know good music existed” until she met him). In the movie, it seemed like she displayed quite a few of her… more unstable tendancies from the moment we first meet her. I acknowledge that this is important; after all, in a movie, you need a character to grab the viewer’s attention almost immediately. Ellen Wong herself does a great Knives, and despite what I just said above, she’s able to really distinguish Knives as she delves further and further into obssession, and it is hilarious.

Honestly, I don’t think Stephen Stills gets enough credit in this movie. if anything, he’s more neurotic and obsessed with “making it big” than in the graphic novels. I like him in this regard; how many of us started bands in high school/college/out-of-college with aspirations to become the next big thing? If you look closely, Stephen Stills is the only one in the band, in his entire group of friends for that matter, with any real plan/ambition for his life. In the same way that Scott appeals to that driftlessness we all felt at that stage in life, Stephen Stills appeals to all the plans that we had and either flopped on or lost interest in.

Wallace Wells, played by Kieran Culkin, steals the show. I was very skeptical of Culkin at first, even moreso that Cera. He seemed too nerdy-looking and awkward to properly portray Wallace’s pseudo-suave, snarky style. In short, he does. His deadpan responses to Scott, his ahem way with the men-folk, and his overall chameleon-like ability to slip into the role.

Kim Pine didn’t recieve nearly enough attention. Though she is a world-class deadpan snarker, and is the subject of a lot of good jokes. However, their past (Which has much significance) is rarely explored, though frequently brought to attention. There are multiple referrences made to the fact that she and Scott dated in high school, and it is made very clear that there is some emotional tension between them. This is never explored or expanded on. Near the end, Scott says “I’m sorry about everything… I’m sorry about me.” This would be heartwarming and profound… if there was any buildup or grounds for his apology. However, it’s very clear that Scott has hurt her, moreso here than in the books. Every time she looks at him, every time he says “Kim and I are all cool now,” she shoots him “daggers of death” eyes. He says this again in regards to Knives, another person he’s hurt. But he’s unwilling to see it, tying back into his initial emotional immaturity. Another (rather minor) issue I have with Kim is her hair. It looks like a clumsily made wig constructed out of tufts of orange hair that were glued together. Lame, I know, but it bothered me.

Envy was… interesting. Naturally, she’s a super-bitch, but she seems too far on the “antagonist” side to the point where she doesn’t even have a personality outside of… being a bitch. The actress’s performence, while it works in that respect, is still very one-dimensional. Granted, in the movie Envy plays a far lesser role, but I expect some humanity from my soulless pop-divas, thnk you very much! However, one could attribute this to the fact that he’s unwilling to admit the fact that their break-up was somewhat harmful to both sides, hence why she’s so cold. I found it kind of amusing that The Clash at Demonhead’s song features, bass, drums, guitar, and keyboard, but the only instruments being played onstage were bass and drums.

The Evil Exes were all great in their respective performances. I could spend this paragraph gushing about them, but you don’t want to read that. I will say, though, that they are all amazing, over-the-top bosses (ESPECIALLY the large ham that is Satya Bhabha’s Matthew Patel)… with the exception of the infamous Twins. As you may have heard/gleaned from the trailers, they are no longer roboticists, but a Japanese music duo that Sex Bob-omb must take on. My problem is that the twins have no personality; they say nothing. I know it was intentional, but the other exes were all smug jerks you you felt like you would want to punch in real life. The twins just feel like faceless goons. It felt like the movie still wanted a cool scene, but figured, “OK, who cares about these guys? We wanna see Gideon!” I gotta give special props to Jason Schwartzman, who plays Gideon. He does Gideon’s passive-aggressive, pseudo-amicable personality so well. This was a Gideon that I hated. I felt like the book version had better characterization, but the movie version was more villainous and smug (Especially considering certain decisions Ramona makes in the third act of the movie).

Well, those are my thoughts (lame conclusion, I know. Conclusion paragraphs were where I always got stuck in essays in fifth grade. How can you not repeat the opening?). The characters, sub-plots, fight scenes, humor, and surrealism add up to a great experience. It’s easily now one of my favorite movies. Maybe not one of the greatest movies, but one of my favorites. I’m looking forward to watching this film years later and seeing my kids not getting it. Then I will tell them of a magical time, when I would break out into musical fights with my girlfriend’s exes, bands played three second songs, love could transform into swords, and it seemed like there were more blogs than there were computers.

((Sorry for the mass send but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7CpPfGLWC8 OHBOYOHBOYOHBOY))

UM I'M REALLY NOT HIP WITH L4D so i can't totally comprehend the significance, but it's cool

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