In an age of information ubiquity, I will never quite accept the logic behind non-simultaneous international release dates. Ignoring the piracy issue, staggering the release of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World a few weeks after the US release date is leaving the potential audience open to the dangers of bad word of mouth. Unless you happen to be Pixar, there’s no way that won’t impact on your business, irrespective of how much or how little truth there is in it. I and mine will be there on opening day, but we’re not the ones you need to win over for the big bucks, however much we would like to believe otherwise.
Anyhoo, tirade over.
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is a movie that I suspect I cannot be impartial or unbiased about. Aside from the earlier blog posts on the subject of Scott and his world, the series has a level of resonance for me that pushes it into a special and sheltered part of my brain that is unassailable by logic or reason. The books about the 23 year scroungabout first came out when I was a 23 year old scroungabout. Scott had a young girlfriend, I had just broken up with same. Ramona just came into his life, Olivia into mine. Gay roomates, oddly filtered perceptions of the world, inexplicable break outs into musical dance numbers… The parallels build up in a fashion that is either eerie, awesome, or the apotheosis of apophenia. The point is that objectivity is difficult at best. I want the series to be awesome. I also want the movie to be awesome. Edgar Wright has directed two of my favourite movies in recent years (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), has the stellar Spaced under his TV belt and probably the finest taste in music of any popular culture figure in the media today.
How then does Scott’s cinematic tale fare?
Quite well, as it happens. Quite well fared indeed. First the positives: the movie looks and sounds amazing. Opening quietly, the movie quickly charges into a pop art video game frenzy that will in seconds let you know whether you are going to enjoy the movie or not. The video game references are present and plenty, but it is their subtlety that impresses: you may chuckle at the 8-bit tinkling, but you will guffaw when you realise that it is the Zelda load-screen/sleep music playing and then realise that we are seeing Scott dream… The story – such as it is – is effectively adapted from the source, chopping and changing in a way that feels natural, retaining the elements that worked and using them in novel ways. Wright realigns the action of the comic to work so well that you wish they happened that way in the source material. Without spoiling book or film, I will just say that I adore how the movie comes to show Scott’s growth and his change in motivation.
The characters are perfectly realised: people whining about Michael Cera before having even seen the movie can relax, his Scott is just as much of a lovable asshat as he was in the books. It is in the supporting cast that the movie really shines, particularly in regards to Kieran Culkin and Allison Pill as Wallace and Kim respectively. Part of the joy of the books is that the cast are all far more likeable than dear, selfish Scott, and that point is not lost here. The breakthrough, as has been stated time and again, is that of Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, who gets to show just about every emotion under the sun as she transitions from innocent school girl to hardcore jilted lover and finally as a mature adult in the space of two hours. The exes are all well realised, and even allowed some small measure of sympathy if you should feel the need to look for it: While Matthew Patel and Lucas Lee come off as idiots for the most part, Todd is – bless him – the victim of his being exceptionally dumb, while Roxy has the rather legitimate upset of being told she was “just a phase”. The movie does not shy away from the emotional carnage that both Scott and Ramona are creating with their self-involvement…
What then are the negatives? While most of the secondary and tertiary characters maintain a reasonable if reduced presence within the story, there are exceptions. Envy Adams suffers the most, having her two and a half volumes of story compressed down into ten minutes. That she is played a little too insincerely also weakens her plot, as it alters her into a throwaway opponent rather than someone Scott may have unfairly aggrieved. Ramona’s role in the climax is also verging on troubling, lacking an agency that puts her character at risk. There is at least an interesting point – that she is trapped in a series of increasingly abusive relationships and they can be hard to escape without help – but it rings oddly here. Thankfully, that it isn’t just Scott fighting removes a certain amount of the sexual politickery, and his aforementioned change in motivation makes his role in the events much more palatable. Some may quiver at the superfast transitions between the day-to-day antics and the heightened reality of Toronto Combat, but as with Speed Racer before it, that just broke my heart with glee.
It’s very hard for me to be negative about this movie, even when I try my hardest.
The movie is not for everyone, but then nothing should be. Whenever anyone tries, you end up with low grade Adam Sandler movies and monstrosities like Vampires Suck. Attention Hollywood: when you make me sympathetic to Twilight, know that you have done something evry wrong and must be punished. You may love Scott Pilgrim or you may very well hate it: it’s a divisive movie, and all the better for it. I’m tired of unimaginative, plodding movies which try to walk the middle ground between art and commerce. It’s a huge shame that it’s not storming the charts in the way it deserves to, but that’s a quiet blessing, since it means we are less likely to have a dozen shameless rip-off parodies a month which look at the artifice and miss the point.
All in all, it’s a triumph that places Wright three for three in his movie output to date. Even though a part of me knows I’m probably wrong about it on some level, it’s equal to Toy Story 3 in my estimation of movies this year and will be the only film I’ll go to see again in the cinema this Summer. Who cares about objectivity when you can have this much fun? Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is just that good, and if you don’t like it, then I am sorry, but I’m not sure that we can be friends any more…*
(* Hyperbole. You’re still pretty neat.)
Bonus! The prequel cartoon which spoils NOTHING and adds A BIT!
Turn my brain off 