My parents are old. Both now qualify for senior citizen discounts at the local cinemas and all-you-can eat buffets. And they would hate this movie if they were confused enough to actually go and see it. On the flipside, they loved Something's Gotta Give. I watched it with them once, and while I didn't quite hate it, it was, and will always be, a movie for old people, and I found it boring, just as they would probably find Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to be spastic, random, and downright weird.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World has not done well in theaters. Total in its two months of release, it has only made about $31,000,000, or roughly half its budget. It is, frankly, a movie with a very specific target audience. Luckily for me (and you, reader), I fall right square in the bullseye.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a film about a 23-year-old bum "between jobs" who lives with a flagrantly gay roommate (played brilliantly by that scene-stealing Kulkin kid who always wet the bed in Home Alone), plays in a band who calles themselves Sex Bob-omb, and is dating a 17-year-old Chinese high-schooler. He is, essentially, something of a loser. But when he meets Ramona, a girl with dyed hair and a slick pair of roller blades, his whole life flips upside-down. In order to date Ramona, you see, Scott has to defeat her seven evil exes.
What makes this movie so brilliant is its comic book style. Sound effect words pop up over characters like the Adam West Batman film of the 60's. Scenes are cut together like a comic strip. And, miraculously, none of it felt overdone, as would have been so easy to do. You honestly feel like you're watching a comic come to life before you (in fact, a few stills from the real Scott Pilgrim graphic novel do make an appearance). Combine that with the excess of videogame jokes (their band IS called Sex Bob-omb), clever dialogue, and fantastic characters, and you have yourself what is, in my opinion, probably the best representation of millenial nerd culture to date. Seriously. This film was made for me. It was like the filmmakers followed me around, observed my self-depricating humor, my love of poking fun at Canada for no good reason, my obsession with videogames, and, honestly, my desire to become the hero for the girl, rolled everything into a coherent plot, and made me pay $9.00 to see it. And I can't thank them enough for it.
There are too many little jokes and references to even try counting in this film. The Legend of Zelda theme makes a appearance. Scott scores a 64-hit combo on one of the evil exes (complete with a small hit-counter displayed on-screen). A man yells "Kaaaaaaay Oooooohhhhh!" when Scott blasts an ex. And don't even get me started on Ex number 3 (played by former Man of Steel Brandon Routh!) or any single bit of the final fight and its aftermath. I realized, after a good chunk of the movie had passed, that I was grinning from ear to ear. For no reason. The film was just that much fun. I must have looked completely insane.
As previously mentioned, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is based on a series of graphic novels that came out between August of 2004 and July of 2010, and for the most part, the movie does a fine job of condensing the 6 graphic novels into a single two-hour movie. The first volume in particular practically makes the transition verbatim into live-action. The graphic novels obviously gain significantly more time to develop characters, hilarious subplots, and a far more insane final fight than witnessed in the movie, but so it goes. Sometimes certain points that are absolutely amazing in one form would be God-awful in another, and I for one am glad that the movie made the various adjustments that it did. While having Scott and the final ex disappear into Subspace, where the ex transforms into a gigantic Super-Saiyan monster, seemed a perfect finale in paper form, I really can't imagine how they would have pulled it off on-screen and not lose half their audience. A fifty-foot Jason Schwartzman would have just been silly.
I could go on for hours about this one. It may very well be my favorite movie of the year. If you have any love of the video game culture, if you secretly wish that you could bash in the faces of your lover's exes, if you want to see what a comic book would really look like in live-action, and if you simply love all things Michael Cera, then please, see this movie. Check out the graphic novels. Buy the Xbox Live Arcade game. Listen to the soundtrack. Do what you can to give this movie the loving attention it so deserves.
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