Awesome Reviews: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

I really like doing these movie reviews. I should do them more often.

Now, to be honest, there’s a couple of things at play here. #1, I really don’t like Michael Cera. #2 I thought the trailer for this looked awesome. So I had very mixed emotions about seeing this movie.

Scott Pilgrim (AKA Michael Cera) is a loser who for some reason dates high school girls, has a band, and falls hopelessly for Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). He wants to date her, but finds out in order to do, he must fight and defeat (kill?) her seven evil ex’s.

How’s that for a concise synopsis?

THE AWESOME


1) THE VISUAL EFFECTS

There’s a shit-ton of them in the movie, and they range from the fight scene cartoonish to comic book lines to denote expression/emotion. Simply put, they’re stunning and add a nice touch to the film- like when the phone rings, literally “rrriiinngggg” appears on screen. It’s cool, and touches on the screenplay’s origin as a comic.

2) THE SUPPORTING CAST, PARTICULARLY THE EX’S.

Literally everyone else in the film is more interesting than Scott Pilgrim and Ramona. Everyone. His sister is more interesting, the ex’s are more interesting, the band mates are more interesting, his gay roommate is WAY more interesting- I would have gladly watched a movie about him. This may be as a result of the over-the-top nature of “the world” compared to Scott, but they made the movie. Even Ramona, who by all rights SHOULD be really interesting as the little-red-haired-girl to Scott’s Charlie Brown, the object of our desires, doesn’t do it for me. Why exactly does Scott want to go for her? I blame the story, which with so much action doesn’t really allow the film to explore the characters that much. But I digress.
It’s a breath of fresh air every time one of the ex’s (with one major exception) shows up, and most are very funny and memorable. We learn a lot about Ramona through the ex’s, who really run the gamut of loser to god.


3) THE MUSIC

This didn’t have memorable soundtrack or anything like that, but I did like the music, particularly from the band, that accompanied a lot of the action scenes. It really fit with the film. I don’t really know what else to say.


4) THE SET/LOCATION

There were a TON of locations for this film, and I loved the attention to detail that was put into them. It greatly hid the fact that they wasn’t really a lot of good dialogue in the film, and gave me at least something to look at when I didn’t care about hearing the same ol’ shit from Scott or Ramona AGAIN.
Most impressive were the way the set changed to fit the mood of the characters. In a scene at the music store, Scott must find a way to break up with his current girlfriend so that he can devote his attention to Ramona. Obviously not thrilled with this, the music sections were labeled “Gloom Rock”, and other silly, “sad” names. Nice touch, and while these didn’t make as much of an appearance as I’d have liked, it was appreciated.



5) THE WORLD

Alright, what I mean by this is how unapologetic the movie is by the surrealistic elements throughout. Who knew Toronto was so awesome? It seems like Scott just figured out apparently anything goes in the world, where people can summon demon hipster chicks and gain psychic powers from being vegan. That sorta shit made me laugh my ass at the sheer wtf-ness of it all. And the movie makes ZERO attempt to explain it, which is also pretty satisfying. It’s like “what, you didn’t know you can do all this shit, too?”



THE NOT AWESOME

1) THE MAIN CAST

In short, Michael Cera did nothing in the film that makes me change my mind about him in the least. He was terrible. Just terrible. He wasn’t the lovable loser or anything like that, he was just fucking annoying and whiny, and man did it piss me off. As mentioned above, virtually everyone else was more interesting. And I don’t know if it’s just me being biased or what, but it really seemed like he collected a paycheck for this one. They were certain scenes in this movie that I just couldn’t take him seriously as an actor- jokes fell flat, his anger was laughable, you name it. And again, maybe it’s just bias, but he was totally forgettable.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead did the best she could, but again, she wasn’t interesting either. Early in the film when she had the “what-is-this-girl-about” thing going for her, but as we learned more about her dating history (and this was rarely done in advance- some dude would show up and then we’d get some abridged backstory about them), I grew less fascinated with the character. If the ex’s weren’t a problem, and Scott could have immediately dated her, at least based on what I saw, he would have grown tired of her in about 25 minutes.



2) THE WRITING/SCREENPLAY

Now, let me clarify. Parts of this movie were extremely well-written- “Do you know how long it took me to get all of their contact information? Like TWO HOURS!”- but all-in-all, I was pretty damn disappointed. If I wrote some of the jokes on this blog, I’d have people blasting me for how lazy and shitty the blog was.

One line in this movie really pissed me the fuck off, and that’s because I remember it from the trailer and I was pissed then, too. It revolves around the fourth ex, and only female ex, Lesbi Girl-loving Bothways CunningLinguist Johnson, I believe her name was. Did you laugh at the name? You should have. Apparently, if you didn’t know, being bisexual is a joke in it of itself. Which raises an interesting question- why is the gay roommate like totally well-adjusted and interesting and nice, but this bisexual girl is such a holy terror?

This single character is the epitome of what went wrong with this movie. Every time Scott mentions “ex-boyfriends”, Ramona clarifies with “ex’s”. OH I WONDER WHY.

I’M BEING SUBTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But worse than that is being bisexual appears to be the only thing about this character. That’s it. Everyone else was either a douchebag, or the result of a fling, or a tool, or in possession of a mind-control device, or talented, or any combination of those of things, or whatever, but that’s the draw with this girl. Bisexual.

Are you laughing yet?

Now, for the line that made me want to vomit, paraphrased:

SCOTT: You dated her?

RAMONA: I was a little bi-curious.

LESBI: Yeah, well, I’m bi-furious!


BI-FURIOUS?!

This is supposed to be funny! That’s the laziest writing ever! Not only is it a play-on-words, but a really fucking terrible one at that. It’s totally unnecessary! I mean, the entire conversation wasn’t written well, but damn, that one line pretty much made me shut down for the rest of the movie. Terrible.

And that’s why the 4th ex personifies the movie, because it felt like everyone involved just took the scene off. If they wanted to, they could have put the time in to make this scene and this movie really good, but it’s like every couple of scenes was a train wreck, and this was by far, for me, the worst offender.

3) OVERKILL

And here we come to the heart of the problem: overkill. Almost everything in the movie had the potential to be good, but there was just too damn much of it.

The movie was WAYYYYYY too long, and I found myself by the third ex fight going alright, this is gonna pick up soon, right? Almost over, maybe a montage or something to get us where we need to be? Nope. Everything was seen in detail, although I was mercifully spared more movie by 2 of the ex’s fighting simultaneously. It clocked in about two hours, although it seemed much longer.

Even the pop culture references got to be too much. I understand the movie was set up like a video game, but for me to play 2 straight hours of a fighting game, it better be really, really good, and this movie wasn’t good enough to justify that sort of commitment.

Also, they absolutely loaded the front end of the movie with the Legend of Zelda sound effects. While cool at first, eventually I hit the ALRIGHT I GET THE POINT plateau and it got annoying.

Inexplicably, one seen is played with a laugh track and the Seinfeld music. But… it didn’t make any sense. And I'll admit I laughed at first, but it reminds me of newer Family Guy’s- a small amount of random shit is funny, but it has to make SOME sense and it can’t be all the time cause otherwise it’s incoherent. It's a cheap laugh but not a good one. I just didn’t understand it, and I WANTED to like that scene!

Alright, so what did I think of the movie?

On a scale of one to ten, one being shitty and ten being mind-blowing, I, starckie, give this movie a….


4: Haters gonna hate as they say, and I know a LOT of people who liked this movie, but I just couldn’t get into it. Which stinks, cause I like the plot, and I wanted to like the movie. But the trouble I had with it was that it was sooooo freaking surface value, and if you’re going to do that in a movie, it better be original as hell. And I know some of you are going to say this WAS original, and you’re right- it was. But not enough to justify the alarming lack of subtlety throughout it. There weren’t any ups and downs in it, it was just “okay on to the next fight/scene”. It’s okay to be surreal, but it’s got to be relatable as well, and for me that just didn’t happen. I mostly didn’t care about any of the main characters. Plus, I hate Michael Cera. So that doesn’t help either.