As fan of director Edgar Wright (dir of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) and also a fan of the comic book series created by Bryan Lee O’Malley you can say I had high hopes for this film. After seeing the resulting film I can say that every hope was meet or surpassed. Edgar Wright masterfully gets what makes Bryan Lee O’Malley comic tick. It is a story about relationships that happens to be wrapped in a love letter to uber geeks and the culture.
Scott Pilgrim is pretty much heavily influenced by American comic book/manga (Japanese comics FYI), video games, and music in general. With that said there is a few things that you should understand to get the film and comic and that is the geek culture.An example of understanding is that if you played the original NES then you know this culture. You may not need to know this set of people to enjoy the film but it certainly helps. One thing that show be understood is that you must look at this film as a musical. You just need to replace a few song and dance numbers with video game influenced fight scenes. If you can wrap your head around that then know is half the battle (for some who do get it, trust me there are people who don’t).
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a slacker 22 year old geek who has thing to learn before he can grow up. He not unlike many people of that age that refuse to take responsibility for there action and chose to ride the current of the stream. While he is coasting along he stumbles upon the girl of his dreams and finds that he must fight for her. Scott must defeat the seven evil ex’s of the girl of his dream Ramona Flowers who is played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (was in Death Proof). That is all the premise you need to know going into this film.
What is great about this story is how it chooses to portray relationships, it shows relationships as something far from perfect and something closer to a work in progress. Even the if you had right guy or girl, it doesn’t mean you will have a a cakewalk. Yes I know that it isn’t the reason that you are watching the film but, it is just another reason why Edgar Wright and comic creator Bryan Lee O’Malley are that good.
The real reason that you watch this flick is because of the humor and of course the visuals. While the comic provided humor and the past knowledge of Edgar Wright’s films (Shaun of the Dead), I know it would be a breeze to get laughs across the silver screen. What the filmmaker achieved is a vision that full fills everything a fan of the series could have thought of. It is unique to the point I can’t say or come up with an example of a film that is like it. From the visual gags to the action scenes it’s pure vision that can only be summed up as pure fun.
For anyone who hates Michael Cera and that he plays the same character, I can say that he pretty much embodies Scott Pilgrim (who has two thumbs and read all 6 volumes? this guy so I have an idea). That pretty much goes for the entire cast who I think each was cast pitch perfectly. From Marc Webber who plays Stephen Stills to Kieran Culkin (yes it is Home Alone little brother) who plays Wallace Wells (who by the way kills it as Scott’s gay roommate), all cast members became the characters that Bryan Lee O’Malley created. Ellen Wong who plays Scott’s 17 year girlfriend Knives Chau actually exceeded my expectation and absolutely killed it. The only one character I didn’t see fit with the actress playing her was Envy Adams who is Scott’s ex girlfriend. Which brings me to the cast of the 7 Evil Ex’s who all brought different flavors to the film. I was expecting a bit more from future Captain America aka Chris Evans turn as 2nd evil ex Lucas Lee but that is just a nit pick that isn’t really worth looking twice on. On a side note did you know that in this film it had Human Torch/Captain America and Superman all in it? It isn’t even a superhero comic.
One last thing I want to touch on is that the music plays a big part in the film. Like a said earlier about thinking about this film as musical, well sometimes in the film actual musical rules do apply. As many musical lovers know, a musical is only as good as the musical numbers. With out going into deep about it, if you have Beck, Metric, and Broken Social Scene provided the music it is hard to go wrong. Then you add Nigel Godrich (producer of Beck and Radiohead), it is almost a sure fire to hit the right target.
Pretty much if you can get behind the fantastic ideas that are at play in this film then you should go out and see this as soon as possible. In a year that has been cranking out mediocre film after mediocre film, there is only two films that you should see. Inception is one and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is the second and it’s not particularly in that order. I do know right now that the two films that I was anticipating the most was Inception and Scott Pilgrim and as of right now, those are my two favorite films of the 80+ films that I have seen this year. I will be seeing it again next week so give me a call.
By the way check out the comic it is 6 volumes of comic awesomeness.
