Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
8/23/10
On the pages of this website,
I have waged war against the tropes of the romantic comedy genre, which
tells the same story again and again, seemingly less romantically or humorously
with an escalating amorality with each passing year. And so I am
pleased to see, for the second consecutive August, a film arrive to serve
the romcom its eviction notice by attacking the dynamics of love with explosive
levels of imagination. Unlike last year's (500)
Days of Summer, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World DOES believe in
love. What it doesn't believe in is anything that's ever been done
in a previous film. Substituting video game action for mistaken identities
and scheming magazine editors, it finds wisdom and genius in a whirlpool
of invention that will baffle as many moviegoers as it enchants.
Count me in the later group: not only was I delighted by Edger Wright's
nutty adventure, I found myself profoundly moved.
In a surreal world that appears
to be a video game, 22-year-old Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) has spent
a year mourning the demise of his relationship with Envy Adams (Brie Larson),
now the lead singer of the popular band The Clash at Demonhead. Scott's
in a band of his own, Sex Bob-Omb, but they play mostly in the living room
of bandmate Stephen Stills (Mark Webber). As the film begins, Scott
is introducing them to his new “girlfriend”, 17-year-old Knives Chau (Ellen
Wong). Disapproval is universal, from Scott's sister Stacey (Anna
Kendrick) to his gay roommate Wallace (Kieran Culkin), and even Scott's
over the sweet Knives once he meets the girl of his dreams (seriously,
she's been in his dreams before he ever sees her): Ramona Flowers
(Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Ramona is way, WAY out of Scott's league,
but he finally wears her down into a quasi-date. Ramona's been going
through some unspecified bad stuff and is attracted to Scott's dorky niceness,
but at every step of the relationship he's insecure, needy and secretive,
refusing to take the hard step of breaking up with Knives until he'd been
dating both girls for weeks. Just when things might start to break
apart on their own, he's challenged to a superpowered duel by Matthew Patel
(Satya Bhabha), a mystic who summons “Demon Hipster Chicks” and sings a
Bollywood musical number while battling Scott. Once our hero prevails,
Ramona explains the truth: her former lovers have formed The League
of Evil Exes under the leadership of her most recent and ruinous boyfriend
Gideon Gordon Graves (Jason Schwartzman), and any man who seeks to date
her must defeat each of them in turn. Without further ado:
movie star Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), The Clash at Demonhead's telepathic
bass player (and Envy's new boyfriend) Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh), Roxy
Richter (Mae Whitman), cast aside after a brief bit of “bi-curiosity”,
and twin Japanese pop stars Kyle & Ken Katayanagi (Shoto & Keita
Saito). Scott needs to defeat the Exes to survive, but to make
it work with Ramona, he'll need more than superpowers: he'll need
to understand the mistakes of his own past relationships and become a better
man.
I highlight that last part
because above all its glorious craziness, what makes Scott Pilgrim vs.
the World really special is that it doesn't buy into the notion that
two bad people can make a good couple simply by overcoming whatever contrivances
a screenplay sets in their path. Scott and Ramona have both left
a long trail of broken hearts on the road to each other (it's pivotal that
she ended things cruelly with each of the Evil Exes), and what he does
to poor Knives isn't just terrible: it's exactly the kind of loutish
behavior most romantic comedies approve of. Our culture has really
embraced the Ex concept, the notion that it's kinda funny to have stomped
on a few hearts in your travels. The problem with this is that the
emotional scars that come from being an Ex make it that much harder to
have your next relationship be positive and successful, rather than another
round of hurtful games before starting the whole process over. Scott
Pilgrim understands this better than any movie I've seen, and the way
the climactic action mixes action with emotional catharsis is astonishing.
But then, the whole idea
of the movie (based on a comic book series created by Bryan Lee O'Malley)
is so crazy I'm amazed anyone had the audacity to mount it. Scott
Pilgrim and his friends seem to literally, without comment by anyone, live
in a video game and their lives are played by video game rules. Not
only does everyone in the Pilgrimverse have access to amazing superpowers
at the drop of a hat (though they only use them while fighting), but words
describing their circumstances and awarding points for them appear in the
air when needed, as do bars measuring the progress of things both important
and banal. Characters grab Power-Ups out of the air, extra lives
are awarded, and each defeated villain explodes into a pile of coins (upon
beating Matthew, Scott bemoans that he hadn't even turned into enough money
for bus fare). Each time Scott battles an Ex, they stand in opposition
on either side of the screen while the word “VS” hovers between them.
The fight between Scott and the Katayanagi Brothers takes the form of a
Battle of the Bands between them and Sex Bob-Omb, with both bands playing
at opposite ends of a concert hall while monsters representing their music
fight it out over the heads of the screaming crowd. This movie is
nuts, and I loved it.
I wish I could say I recognized
a lot of the dialog and naming references to early 90's video games, but
I needed the Internet to fill me in on things like Bob-Omb being an explosive
villain from Super Mario Bros. 2 and Clash at Demonhead being an NES video
game (Scott Pilgrim BEING a video game, I assume the band is named not
for the game but, you know, that clash at Demonhead). I assume fans
of video games of that vintage will find even more reason to love the movie.
Co-writer/directed Edgar Wright stages all of this, as well as Scott's
very interested but not entirely supportive circle of friends and family
as amped-up surreal farce in a way that reminded me of the old TV series
Parker Lewis Can't Lose.
Another thing he does is
get the most out of his actors. Michael Cera is one of those guys
who's a star first and an actor second, and the trick as his director is
getting the depth necessary to take best advantage of his iconic dorkiness.
I've never seen him better than he is here: not only is Cera great
in the action sequences, but he reveals steely courage I'd have never thought
he had in him. Winstead, always a personal favorite, is amazing here.
I can only imagine how daunted an actress must be by a script that asks
her to be so hot snow melts under her feet, but she pulls off so many contradictions
with consummate skill: seeming every bit that hot but still genuinely
attracted to a Regular Guy, deeply messed up but also super-cool.
And the one action scene she gets to show off in (battling steel whip-swinging
Roxy with a giant Thor-style hammer) is terrific.
As in Wright's previous film,
the splendid Hot Fuzz, there are just too many
great performances here to cite. All the Exes are great, but Schwartzman,
another guy I didn't think had this note in him, is not just evil, but
also oozes “I'm better than you” charm. Culkin is a loony treat as
Scott's supportive but also hyper-gossipy best friend. Kendrick is
also hilarious as the Sister who's not so much with the support but can
always be counted on to spread Scott's dirty laundry around. And
Wong is wonderful in a very challenging role that calls on Knives to first
be amusingly naïve and oblivious, then a vengeful stalker and finally
a luminous heroine while also showing serious skill in the action sequences.
I'm not sure why Universal
thought investing a reported 90 million dollars in a movie this astonishingly
specific was a good business decision, but I'm glad they did. Scott
Pilgrim vs. the World tells its story in a format you'd associate with
a hollow stylistic exercise, but instead uses all that crazy showmanship
to get to the heart of matters that have eluded the most straitlaced dramas.
Over time, I'd expect Edger Wright's film to attract a cult made up of
equal parts brokenhearted exes, action aficionados, video game cultists,
rock music fans and anybody who just likes the sound of the words The Clash
at Demonhead. If you see yourself in any of these groups, give Scott
Pilgrim a try: there's nothing better than discovering a bold,
creative movie that seems to have been made just for you. |
