Overlooked Film of the Week- #56
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Part of the reason I started this blog was because I
want to champion for movies I feel need to be seen. There are plenty of films
that are released each year that do not get the coverage or attention I believe
they need. In a world that is over-saturated by several tentpole genres, I like
the smaller stuff, I love the festival fare that finally rolls around, and I
love the movies that may not have boosted the box office but were awesome films
nonetheless. A films box office earnings have never swayed my opinion of a
movie, never has never will. Whether a movie can make money or not is irrelevant.
What I look for in a movie is personal enjoyment, plain and simple. That is the
way it should be if you ask me.
I hope a few years from now, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The
World” develops a great cult following and that it continues to touch the
hearts of so many film lovers, kind of like how it did for me. This movie came
out in the summer of 2010, and vanished without a trace. It didn’t make tons of
cash that summer, but it still made an impression on me this year. It was a
movie that was better than most of the films that came out that year, and after
watching it again last night after a slight hiatus, I find that it still
dazzles. It still has the power to evoke incredible emotions from me. Not bad
for a movie about a guy who fights seven evil exes to his “new new” girlfriend
in hyper-stylized manners.
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22-year-old
Canadian boy, who leads a life that is interesting to say the least. He’s a
freeloader who never seems to be working anywhere, he is dating a 17-year-old
high school girl, he plays bass in a garage rock band, and he constantly seems
stressed out by something. One night he sees a beautiful woman in his dreams
(literally, his dreams) and he is destined to find her. Luckily enough, he sees
this girl at a party, her name is Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and
he’s incredibly smitten with her. Despite being warned of certain danger
involved in dating her, Scott cannot resist her; she is of course the woman of
his dreams. Eventually, he is able to win her over, which has severe
consequences for Scott. Not only does he have to break-up with his 17-year-old
high school girlfriend, he has to defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes in order to
go out with her.
This may sound like a crazy idea for a movie, and it
certainly is crazy. Not to mention that the fights are overly-stylized,
hyper-kinetically charged battles. “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” was based on a
manga series, so it makes sense that some stuff in the movie defies gravity or
logical convention for that matter. One thing I love about this movie is that
it completely embraced living in a comic book world, something most other
movies of this type never do. To every detail, this movie reflects a world
completely unlike our world, but that is all part of the style and fun of it
all. Director Edgar Wright adapted the whole Scott Pilgrim series into one
film, making impossible to turn this into a series, but Wright told a
worthwhile story through the all of Scott Pilgrim’s subject matter.
Sometimes something may look slick and surreal on
the surface, but has a story anybody on Earth could relate to. “Scott Pilgrim
vs. The World,” is one of those movies. The film reflects great insight on how
we enter relationships, how baggage from other relationships can filter through
new ones and how two people grow as a relationship begins to flourish. Sure,
there are people beating each other up, video game style, but that is all to
drive the metaphor home. Everybody in this world approaches a relationship in a
different way, and every previous relationship impacts somebody, no matter how
big or small it was. “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” offers fresh and unique tale
on relationships and how they can sometimes drive us nuts in the beginning.
There was definitely a lot here that I personally could relate too, which is
amazing considering the subject matter.
Insightful story aside, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”
is mesmerizing on so many different levels. There are more pop culture
references and parodies to shake a good stick at. Most of the parodies are made
on the video game world, and that is all a lot of fun. The story itself kind of
reflects a video game, so it’s interesting how video game conventions and the
story paralleled so well. “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” also features one of
the best soundtracks in recent memory for a movie. The music written by Beck is
absolutely outstanding and the rest of the bands featured in the film do very
well. Some of Beck’s songs are redone by Scott Pilgrim’s band in the movie,
known as Sex Bob-Omb (get it?), and they are terrific. All of the technical
aspects of “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” are a treat and only enrich the
experience as a whole.
The performances…wow, that’s all that I can say. It
is not every day when you come across a film that features tons of memorably
awesome characters. The work by Cera and Winstead is awesome, it was great to
finally see Cera not being typical Cera, and he’s real good at it by the way.
Ellen Wong plays Knives Chau, the 17-year-old girlfriend of Scott Pilgrim. Wong
is adorable and hilarious as Chau and has some big scenes that she absolutely
nails. I love Pilgrim’s gay roommate Wallace played by Kieran Culkin, and I
particularly loved that he was not the typical, stereotypical gay roommate we
usually see in movies. Anna Kendrick plays Pilgrims sister and Aubrey Plaza
plays Julie, a “friend” of Pilgrims and they both do great work here. I also
love Alison Pill, Mark Webber and Johnny Simmons who play Pilgrims band-mates
all of whom have an interesting history with Scott.
Then there are the evil exes, and I love that each
of the seven has a unique personality. I didn’t like that the Katayanagi twins
are the only exes who are never fleshed out as characters, but oh well. Chris
Evans, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzmann are the three most popular names
among the evil exes and all three do great work. I also love the small but substantial
work done by Satya Bhabha and Mae Whitman, who are the last to round out the
evil exes. Each evil ex is an incredibly foil for Scott and I love each of them
in a different way. Also look for cameos by Thomas Jane and Clifton Collins Jr.
as Vegan Police officers, and you’ll have to actually see the movie to find out
what that means.
I think a film like “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” is
a classic. I think it’s a great example of a movie that may not have been a box
office smash, but was something worth seeing. It’s a movie that you could
really relate to if you gave it a chance. Plus, it’s a rock-n-roll, stylish
adventure that will be hard to shake for weeks. Just because something makes a
certain amount of money, doesn't mean it is worth your time and vice versa.
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