Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Review: Beyond Epic!
July 31, 2010 by Bilal Mian
Filed under comics, Feature, feature overlay, Movies, special coverage
Walking around the streets of Downtown San Diego it was impossible to miss the presence of director Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. The movie, opening August 13, had taken Comic-Con by storm. The Hilton Hotel sported a giant movie poster hanging down its facade and the Gaslamp Quarter District was home to “The Scott Pilgrim Experience” where fans could eat free garlic bread, make tee-shirts, play the Scott Pilgrim game by Ubisoft, listen to the movie’s soundtrack, and even meet the cast of the film along with the series creator Bryan Lee O’Malley.
On Thursday night during the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World panel at Hall H, Wright announced that the movie would be screening for Comic Con attendees at the Balboa Theater on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. With Thursday’s screening for special pin holders, Friday and Saturday screenings were open to the public. Sadly I did not have the requisite “Scott Pilgrim 1-Up” pin for Thursday night’s screening, but I was able to catch the film Friday night at the Balboa Theater.
To quote the billboards and posters for the movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is an “Epic of Epic Epicness.” By mixing action, adventure, romance, and comedy into a near perfect film Wright is able to bring Bryan Lee O’Malley’s series to life. The story follows Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who falls for the new girl in town, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). However, things don’t go as planned as Scott must defeat her Seven Evil Exes to be with her. The movie starts off grounded in reality, but with the arrival of Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha), Ramona’s First Evil Ex-Boyfriend, the movie jumps the rails of reality into the fictional world O’Malley created in his books.
Wright envelops the world of the film with comic book style displays such as “ding dong” appearing on screen when a bell rings or the words “LOVE” floating out in a pink haze when uttered by Ellen Wong’s character Knives Chau. One of my favorite examples occurs with the arrival of Matthew Patel. With Patel approaching to strike, everything around Scott slows down as he mouths, “What do I do?” before throwing his guitar to Young Neil (Johnny Simmons). Scott gets himself into a defensive position, pulling up his left arm to block the incoming blow. Scott quickly follows with a vicious punch to Patel’s face with his right, as the Street Fighter series’ “Reversal” flashes on the bottom right of the screen. The scene flows perfectly, beginning one of many beautifully shot and crafted fight sequences found throughout the film.
Like the Street Fighter reversal, the movie is littered with videogame references from beginning to the end. Other videogame references where the classic chiptunes from The Legend of Zelda, references of leveling up, stats, and even 1-ups. Defeated enemies even burst into coins. Clash at Demonhead, the band of Scott’s ex-girlfriend Envy Adams (Brie Larson), was named after the first Nintendo game O’Malley received as a child. Oddly enough, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World isn’t a videogame movie, but it could easily be considered the best one yet.
What truly makes Scott Pilgrim vs. The World a fantastic movie, aside from the visuals or the pop references, is the music. The musical aspect of the movie soars with Sex Bob-omb and Clash at Demonhead written by Beck and Metric respectively. I was blown away when the movie’s music video for Black Sheep by Metric starts playing on screen. Edgar Wright could quit making movies and have an equally successful career making music videos.
The cast of the movie is stacked. Michael Cera (Scott Pilgrim), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Ramona Flowers), Kieran Culkin (Wallace Wells), Chris Evans (Lucas Lee), Anna Kendrick (Stacey Pilgrim), Brandon Routh (Todd Ingrim), Alison Pill (Kim Pine), Jason Schwartzman (Gideon Graves), Ellen Wong (Knives Chau), Satya Bhabha (Matthew Patel), Mark Webber (Stephen Stills), Brie Larson (Envy Adams), Aubrey Plaza (Julie Powers), Mae Whitman (Roxy Richter) , and Johnny Simmons (Young Neil) just to name a few. Everyone in the film delivers. Cera kicks it into high gear with a shocking performance in his fight scenes against Evil Exes: Matthew Patel (Bhabha), Lucas Lee (Evan), Vegan Powered Todd Ingram (Routh), furious Roxy Richter (Whitman), and notorious Gideon Graves (Schwartzman). Even with great performances by everyone in the cast, it is Kieran Culkin’s portrayal of Wallace Wells that steals the show. Some may say Wallace’s lines make Culkin’s performance great, but it is Culkin’s delivery that seals the deal. The best part about the characters in the movie are how well they compare to the characters in the books.
Comparing the movie to the book series, fans will be very well pleased with the film’s adaptation. The characters are true to their nature that O’Malley crafted in the series. I honestly believe Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the best comic book movie made to date, purists might not. Character back-stories seen in the novels do not make it into the film; neither does the character Lisa Miller. She does get referenced in the movie at one point or another. Coming in around two hours of screen time the movie cuts corners, but it cuts them well. The movie follows the books closely till the end of the third book. Dealing with Books Four and Five, Wright streamlines the novels picking and choosing certain scenes and changing how some of them play out. The movie does take a good portion of concepts from the sixth book and works them in superbly. Does cutting out back-story and someone from Scott’s past work? Absolutely. There is only so much a movie can cover from thousand plus pages of material. However, by cutting out the back-story those fans looking for deep characters won’t find them here. Wright and the screenwriters chose what to keep and what to remove. Judging from the crowd’s reaction when the credits rolled, Wright and crew proved they done it perfectly.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a very fast paced film. It has a lot of ground to cover and it moves, looks, and feels just like a comic book. Edgar Wright’s attention to detail and his strive for perfection pay off with the deliverance of a near perfect movie. The fast pace of the film can be offsetting to some and the lack of character development compared to Bryan Lee O’Malley’s series might turn a few fans off. With many book to movie adaptations turning up lackluster, it is rare to see a director that treats the source material for a movie with such respect. With the movie’s credits rolling 1300 people in Balboa Theater got to their feet for one of the loudest standing ovations.
Sporting breathtaking action scenes, hilarious dialogue, top notch soundtrack, a fully loaded cast, and insane scenarios, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is one the best movie experiences you’ll ever have.
Final Grade – A+
Question for Edgar Wright – In the off chance that I or someone else manages to get Edgar Wright to read this paragraph, I have a question for him pertaining to the ending of the movie. Back in February when I saw an early screening of the film the ending was different. What lead to the change of this? Both endings are great and the new one is more likely to be well received, but what was the ultimate decision in changing it?
Photo by Double Negative & Kerry Hayes – © 2010 Universal Studios
How did it end before? I thought it had a pretty good ending.
I wholeheartedly agree with this review. I’m a huge fan of the books and was extremely excited for the movie, and though some of my favourite bits got cut and I had some whinges of “that’s-way-different-from-the-books”, I was not disappointed whatsoever. The movie is an audio-visual feast, rapid and consistently entertaining without a dull moment.
The soundtrack music and score were brilliant; when I first heard what artists were making the music for which bands my excitement shot through the roof. Beck is my favourite musician and I think the songs he wrote for Sex Bob-Omb perfectly capture what you could see in the books. Metric’s song for the Clash at Demonhead and Broken Social Scene’s songs for Crash and the Boys were amazing (though I wish they could have made “Last Song Kills Audience”!).
I was really looking forward to Kieran Culkin as Wallace and he did not let me down. Wallace is one of my favourite characters from the series and Kieran played him exactly as I imagined him. The rest of the cast were absolutely stunning as well, and I’ll admit to being part of the camp who had doubts initially about Michael Cera as Scott but he nailed it!
I agree 110% with this review, it’s really hard to talk about the movie without becoming animated yourself. I actually still have my 1-up button, and metric even played right after the movie! Edgar Wright is a genius, enough said!