Scott Pilgrim vs. the World review

What does it say when Sly Stallone can't take an entire cast of established hard-asses and make them seem heroic, cool, badass or for the villains menacing? What does it say when Edgar Wright can take a bunch of twenty-somethings, most from comedies or teen dramas and shoot them in the way an old school kung-fu filmmaking pro would lovingly display the skill and talent of his performers while making them interesting and giving them something to do? I suppose it says that Stallone took what could've been cheesy, B-action fun and turned into a cheap, boring piece of junk and Edgar Wright has actually set down and crafted a joyful, fun, exciting, funny and creative piece of work. "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" actually lives up and exceeds it's hype. No easy feet.

But amidst all the fight sequences it is at it's core a love story and for the film to work you must believe that Scott really cares about Ramona and that she's worth it. Often this is a highly contested point because not everyone sees romance and/or love in the same light. And in normal movie with characters similar to this it probably wouldn't work, but this is no normal romance nor is it a normal film. Everything is touched with a bit of the cartoonish and the stylized, much in tune with Edgar's style, but less British. So in this case I think the romance can work because it's world and people in it aren't serious. The reason "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" didn't work for me is because Cera and Dennings didn't seem to connect the way they ought to on screen. Their world was one that was based around music in that fairly pretentious way building up to seeing one fairly mediocre band at the end. Scott and Ramona's romance is centered around just how far he's willing/ how many punches does he wanna take for this girl, but one that he's obviously connecting with. In addition it's a celebration of music, video games, cinema and friends.

Michael Cera gets a lot of flack and I still wonder why. I suppose it was because he started pulling down a lot more roles and said things started coming along quicker with him playing the same type of character beat for beat. Some say he did the same here and I call bullshit on that. I've literally been watching this dude since "Arrested Development" as Jason Bateman's super socially awkward son George Michael; since then I do agree not much has changed in his characters. But with Scott Pilgrim it is something different. He's not that quiet little kid in the corner worried about every little thing and afraid to speak up; here he's talky, ready, somewhat awkward at times, but always on the move and always thinking fast. By the middle of the movie he's gone on to the no bullshit approach. I suppose by then he'd fought half the evil ex's so my guess is you too would have that particular mindset after all that. Mary Elizabeth Winstead ('Death Proof' and 'Live Free or Die Hard') is Ramona, the girl of Scott's dreams (literally and figuratively). Winstead is slowly picking and choosing roles that work for her and lack a lot of the 'look-at-me' presentation a lot of young stars aim for. I actually wouldn't mind her fully headlining a film to see how it works for her considering her body of work is quite good. As Ramona she's snarky, but not quite mean and she's caring in that qusi-hipster sense of caring. Again in this supped up world that dynamic works.

Then the film is filled with great supporting work by Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Chris Evans, Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick, Mark Webber, Brandon Routh and more. Each work effortlessly to be funny and interesting on screen. The fight scenes are done in that video game stylization that actually makes them more exciting because anything can happen as opposed to the regular fights in films. Stephen Chow's films like "Kung-fu Hustle" is good example of the type of fighting we have here. Furthermore it's actually good for a bunch of actors who have probably never fought on screen (Evans and Routh are the exceptions). They inject humor into the battles and a lot of creativity steaming for again video games, but also clever movie odes ('The Warriors' for example). Really with all of Edgar Wright's work you see his love of the arts. "Hot Fuzz" was his love letter to action films, "Shaun of the Dead" was his love letter to Romero zombie films and "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is love letter to video games.

But this is all kind of bittersweet for me as I'm writing this after opening weekend where the film opened in fifth place. Granted I believe there was less prints released and people had faith in Sly and Julia to provide something they didn't. Plus the anti-Cera movement. Well I'll say here what I said on my twitter. If you went to see "Grown Ups" or "Macgruber" this summer and are not seeing "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", then you deserve a kick in the head. I actually feel like I could now elaborate this having seen the picture, but what's the point. If you all want to keep this blind hope alive that "The Expendables" was actually fun, instead a boring compilation of bad action mixed with bad writing and directing be my guest. However at least give this a shot in the dark. People complain about the lack of creativity and originality in movies today, well here you go! You finally have a great and original film out there and you STILL WON'T SEE IT. This is why there's so many remakes and reboots. Get a clue people.

Jonah Hex review

I did a bit of research before I sat down to write this. See I've been following the production of "Jonah Hex" for quite some time now. First off I'm a fan of Josh Brolin and the idea that the dude was going to attempt to dive into being an action hero struck me as cool. Second was that "Crank" and "Crank 2" creators Neveldine & Taylor were writing and directing the film. And third because of the previous reasons and knowing that the world would have a hard R-rated action piece with a nice sized budget about a disfigured gunslinger fighting supernatural evils. Sorry art world, but that shit will win my bucks any day. Unfortunately as time passed a lot changed. Neveldine & Taylor were out as directors and in was Jimmy Hayward; director of "Horton Hears a Who!".... I'll let everything I've told you sink in. So I wanted to know what happened, but we'll get to that later.

Now I'm all for giving people a chance to try something new, but that's considering if the material works for that person. For Hayward... ehhhhh I'm gonna go with no. All that R-rated shit... out the door. Time for some good ole' fashioned PG-13ing which is apparently what Warner Brothers was looking for. Now in addition to Brolin let's bring in John Malkovich cause he sell anything... Megan Fox for all those horny men out there and then toss in some other familiar faces for good measure. Yeah... now we have a movie that someone will buy to see right? Right?!

Apparently wrong goop for brains. The story of Jimmy Hayward's "Jonah Hex" is basically this... Hex was a soldier whose family was killed by Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) for killing his son and Hex's best friend (reasons are pretty paper thin). He's now a supernatural fighting, disfigured bounty hunter that's been hired by the government to hunt down Turnbull who is going for destroy Washington D.C. with a super weapon (aka a big ass cannon on boat) for some reason. Oh and he apparently likes Lilah, a hooker played in a couple scenes by Megan Fox. I don't know... call me crazy, but there could be some holes in this story.

As it turns out Malkovich can't sell everything. For example being a ex-southern general who wants to destroy the capital. I guess we're supposed to believe that since he was a confederate that he's just hell bent on destroying the U.S. or something of that sort. But as little sense as he's whole dastardly scheme makes, still it'd be nice if he could sound like a southerner. Instead he does this odd vocal changing that makes him sound more like slack-jawed northerner than anything else. Equally Megan Fox's accent is flimsy, but sometimes works. I'm not a Fox hater and I think she's far from being a horrible actress. Mainly because she's never tired to be anything out of the norm character wise that would make me think that. It doesn't take Kate Winslet to read Fox's lines in "Transformers" and most of the Fox haters I've discovered are simply people who dislike her media attention. I could care less. The thing of it is she can work and with someone like her in your film you can use what she has (ala' some skill, but lots of looks) to your advantage. Instead she has about four or five scenes, is loosely connected as a "love" interest for Hex and really has no reason to be in the story except to be there and get people to see the movie.

Rounding out the casting fuck ups is the under using of great talents like Will Arnet, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Michael Fassbender and worst of all Michael Shannon who has ONE LINE. A man who is one of the very best working actors today... has one fucking line in this film. He had more lines in "Bad Boys II"! He had more lines in "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans"! What in the living shit is going on?! At least that was what I was asking myself for the latter half of the movie. The first twenty or so minutes isn't terrible. The introduction to Hex is alright; as is the following train sequence. But after that it's all downhill, with the only saving grace being Brolin.

I can honestly say that despite all the fuck ups in the film, Josh Brolin is a great looking and acting Hex. He'd be even better if he wasn't neutered and was allowed to be the ultimate badass he could be. As far as spouting quirky one-liners and the dispensing of bad guys however he's pretty darn good. I should also mention that with all the killings and what not that we don't see a drop of blood or anything. In fact one thing that kills the pretty nice train scene is the fact that when the cart with all the people in it blows to kingdom come, the aftermath simply shows a couple of fully intact, semi blackened bodies near the rails. The final battle between Hex and Turnbull is also strange. It's short, shot through awkward close ups and honestly the most forgettable thing about the movie. Oh and there's this completely ridiculous and pointless "dream fight" where the two battle in the red clay desert type arena that keeps getting cut to in the sequence.

So who's to blame? Neveldine & Taylor are still credited as the screenwriters however their script is VASTLY different from what they ended up doing. How different? Well being a fan I did some digging and discovered this great article going through what they intended to happen versus what was made. Also on Neveldine & Taylor's website you can actually purchase their scripts including their original one for "Jonah Hex"; something I might do the next time I've got some extra cash. From what I've read and heard their version would have been without a doubt superior and could've really delivered that kick in the pants the summer season has yet to really get.

I would love to think that someone, somewhere is reading that article or their screenplay and is realizing how much Warner Brothers screwed up. I'd love to think that they're going to wait it down for a while and try to figure out a way to use this character from something worth while. Of course that MIGHT have been the case if they hadn't released the film against "Toy Story 3"; one of the biggest movies of the year. You see if you have a shit movie and you know it's a shit movie and you just want to release something to grab some cash and be done with it all... then perhaps picking a proper release date would be wise. The film opened at #8 so it's my guess that it won't be making back it's $65 million dollar budget (by the way... I'd LOVE to know where that money went). However their is a silver lining to all this. As it turns out someone did love what Neveldine & Taylor wanted to do for "Jonah Hex" and apparently wants them to do that for another back-burner comic book character, Ghost Rider. And while co-writer/ director Mark Steven Johnson ("Daredevil" and "When In Rome"... yes the one with Kristen Bell) did make the first awful damn movie, it seems the "Crank" boys will sweep in to actually turn it into something fresh, exciting and I'm sure quite ballsy. Everything "Jonah Hex" was not.