Comedy

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

To say Edgar Wright’s movie came with a weight of expectation is something of an understatement. His back catalogue of two uniquely British films, have unusually found international audiences despite not being costume dramas. Shaun of the Dead was a certified geek classic which has done that thing that all best cult films do; grown in fanbase exponentially via word of mouth, and established an ubiquity on late night TV. Hot Fuzz took his keen eye for the language of cinema, and turned it expertly on the action movie genre, taking so much of what we guiltily love about the blockbuster and gently poking fun at it. In fact, I suspect part of the reason I couldn’t buy into The Hurt Locker critical love-in was that so many of Bigelow’s visual ticks were so superbly sent up in this movie.

Both of these movies were critical and relative commercial successes, and whilst we’ve become used to collaborator Simon Pegg branching out on his own, in projects of varying quality, it was Wright who myself, and many others wanted to see do his thing on the bigger stage. So it was with great enthusiasm that I accepted my free ticket courtesy of the guys at Grolsch and Little White Lies Presents.

I feel I must preface this review with the first of two confessions, by saying that the day leading up to the screening hadn’t exactly gone my way, I won’t bore you with the mundanities, but suffice to say I didn’t arrive at the Duke of York’s in the best of moods, which may have coloured my experience slightly. But still my expectation were high, I’d avidly followed the Comic-con reports, and the word on this movie was that it was solid gold, that it reinvented the grammar and prose of cinema, that nothing would be the same again, and all the type of insane hyperbole that the geek community specialises in. I wanted this movie to be amazing, I wanted it to change my life, I wanted it to be all of these things, but unfortunately it wasn’t. It was simply just quite good, with moments of genius.

The plot, as it is, involves Michael Cera’s Scott falling in love with Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Ramona Flowers. This is complicated by the fact that if he wants to stay with her he’ll have to defeat her seven evil exes. There are also a couple of side plots revolving around Scott’s ex “Knives Chau” (Ellen Wong), and Scott’s fellow band members.

My problems mostly lie in the script, and tone of the film. I haven’t read the comic. I flicked through it in comic shops a few time and found myself put off by the manga-esque artwork, which leads me to my second and most damning confession: I don’t particularly like anime, even the ‘classics’. I’m the also seemingly the only person in world that doesn’t care for Miyazaki films. And don’t even get me started on Pokemon. Now if any mainstream US film has been rife with the beats and rhythms of these influences, it’s Scott Pilgrim, and here in lay the problem for me. The sardonic indie quirk of the script quickly lost it’s charm, and I would have happily traded the world weary disaffected irony for some kind of connection to the characters. I’m personally starting to find Michael Cera’s awkward-but-charming act a little old. With the exception of a truly fantastic turn by Kieran Culkin as Scott’s gay roomate, I didn’t really like anyone in this movie. This made it very difficult to care what happened to any of them. In fact by the time we got to the final ex, (a scenery chewingly smug piece of pantomime villainy by Jason Schwartzman) I simply didn’t care any more. Scott could have ended up with anyone, or on his own, I honestly wasn’t fussed.

Yet despite all this I still ultimately enjoyed this movie. This speaks volume for the sheer strength of the energy and visual quality of this film. There were many times watching it that I felt the same way I did watching the first Matrix, or Tron all those years ago. Basically watching things on screen done in a way you haven’t seen before. The video game on screen schtick has been done many times, but never as immersively, consistently and kinetically as this. When Scott is dreaming about Ramona, the way the scenes combine, are both beautiful and disorientating, and the fight sequences with all their arcade flare outs, and perspective changes are truly breathtaking.

Edgar Wright demonstrates here that he truly is a world class film maker, and has something truly special in him. I suspect for many of my peers this IS something truly special. For me, I would like to see him tackle some weightier subject matter with some real emotional impact, whilst retaining his trademark comedic eye, and expanding on this insane visual triumph. Unfortunately nothing came close to being as engaging as the moment in Shaun of the Dead where he realises his mum is infected, or as funny as practically anything in Hot Fuzz. Then again I’m a curmudgeonly old man who doesn’t like anime, what the hell do I know?