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.