Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (****)
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Ellen
Wong, Alison Pill, Mark Webber, Anna Kendrick, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh,
Jason Schwartzman, Johnny Simmons
Seen: December 3rd 2010
**** Out of ****
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is such a cool movie that I’m going to
have to see it again. Look at the poster. If that alone doesn’t scream cool to
you, I think your next step should be to give up. On life. Scott Pilgrim vs.
the World is a new idea presented in such a far-out and over-the-top way that
one viewing will never allow you to catch all the small details imbued in
nearly every frame.
Scott Pilgrim (Cera) is a 22 year old ‘normal’ guy. He plays guitar in
a rock band called Sex Bob-omb (whose music for the movie is provided by Beck) with
Kim Pine (Pill), one of Scott’s ex-girlfriends, on the drums; Stephen Stills
(Webber) on lead vocals, the band’s ‘talent’; and eventually “Young” Neil
Nordegraf (Simmons) as the band’s new guitarist. Scott is dating a 17 year-old
high school girl called Knives Chau (Wong) who is ridiculously crushing on him,
while the band members simply call her a high schooler. At a party Scott meets
Ramona Flowers (Winstead), whom he instantly falls in love with, causing him to
lose interest in Knives. After a bit of Michael Cera-style pathetic (yet
entertaining) pleading Ramona agrees to hang out with Scott, and soon enough
they are dating.
At Sex Bob-omb’s next gig, a battle of the bands in fact, Scott is
attacked by Matthew Patel, Ramona’s first evil ex-boyfriend, much to Scott’s
surprise. You see, Ramona’s exes (7 of them) have banded together and formed
the league of evil exes (not ex-boyfriends, as Ramona is quick to correct Scott
every time he mentions ex-boyfriends: one of the exes is a girl, Roxy Richter).
The fight is glorious, with cartoon text appearing on-screen with hits: SMACK,
KAPOW and the like smashed across the screen in an almost interactive way.
Scott must defeat the 7 evil exes in order to be with Ramona, and they all
increase in difficulty as he progresses through Matthew Patel; movie star Lucas
Lee (Evans) and all his stunt doubles; Todd Ingram (Routh) with his psychic
vegan superpowers; Roxy Richter in a fight where even Ramona joins the action
with a battle hammer pulled out of her small handbag (referencing her comic character’s
ability to control subspace); the Katayanagi twins, whom Scott fights with the
help of his band; and finally Gideon (Schwartzman), the convenor of the league.
The fights are all ‘computerised’, with the weapons digitized and pixelated
in the vein of 80’s and early 90’s video games. Sex Bob-omb is a reference to
Bob-omb, a Super Mario character, and the rest of the movie is filled with a
plethora of gaming references, Scott even grabs a life from the air at one
point. The fights are hectic and crazy in a way reminiscent of the Crazy-88
fight in Kill Bill Volume 1, but are filmed in such a way that the viewer is never
confused at what is going on a la Transformers 2. The special effects are
awesome and even the Universal Pictures lead-in to the movie is digitised with
their theme adapted to sound as if it is played through an 80’s computer.
Michael Cera brings quite a bit of his usual characters along in this
movie, but he also displays a bit of a bad-ass rocker style not seen before
combined with a very convincing martial arts skill-set with which he manages to
defend himself as if he is a seasoned veteran. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the
perfect object of obsession for Scott, as she portrays a mysterious and
attractive Ramona who still has her few flaws. Kieran Culkin is brilliant as
Wallace Wells, Scott’s gay roommate, basically Scott’s grounding to reality,
and Ellen Wong does a terrific job creating an obliviously lovesick teenager.
Chris Evans and Brandon Routh must’ve had aeons of fun as evil exes #2 and #3,
extended cameos with great impact, with Jason Schwartzman finishing off the
evil exes with great flair.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is unconventional in every sense, even it’s
tagline pronounces the movie to be: “An epic of epic epicness”. It is huge in
every sense, it will be copied but very likely never be improved on. And yes,
that tagline is correct, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is epic.
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