Scott Pilgrim vs The World: A review
The Big Bad Blog rates this movie as FUN.
We begin this review with a warning. This paragraph and the one following do not include any spoilers for the movie. After that, it is anyone’s guess. Your intrepid blogger, while not wanting to ruin the movie for you, will also happily refer to events and characters in the movie. You have been warned.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is original. It creates its own little parallel universe, is full of imagination, and quite often hilarious. All these things make the film worth seeing, and make it likely that you — as a reader of the Big Bad Blog — will probably enjoy yourself quite a bit. It is also very, very shallow. Very shallow. Seriously. It makes Rambo look deep.
As a caveat, it must be noted that your intrepid Blogger has not read the books. At a runtime of one-hundred-and-twelve minutes, it had to fit in seven epic fights, introduce us to seven evil ex-boyfriends, and show us Scott, Ramona, Knives, Scott’s sister, ex, roommate, and bandmates. Sixteen characters to have a feel for and seven fights leaves us less than five minutes per character investigation/fight on average. And that would leave no time for joining them up.
Your Big Bad Blog now explores his reasoning behind Scott Pilgrim:
What’s Awesome
We begin with why you should see this movie.
The answer is simple: It is a brilliant visual representation of the comic.
In this respect, it is much like Sin City, based on the Frank Miller comics. While I have not yet read the Scott Pilgrim comics, I do have a vague idea of what they look like, and that was brought to life in a brilliant and inventive way in the film.
Moreover, Scott Pilgrim has a video game feel to it, as well. Here at the Big Bad Blog, we assume that came from the comic too. Regardless of the origin, it is undeniably awesome.
The open sequences to the movie do more than introduce us to the characters, they introduce us to the world. It looks like the Toronto we know and love on the surface, but it is filled with comic book and video game logic and physics — it goes beyond a mere look.
If you love comic books and video games, see this in the theatre. Even if you only like them. Or liked them once upon a time. It is worthwhile for this alone.
What’s Good
So that’s what’s great about the movie — but is that enough? Certainly not for this blogger. All style and no substance is great for a short film, but not for a feature.
Luckily the film is funny. Very funny.
The supporting characters are brilliantly done. With the exception of Knives Chau, they are one-dimensional, each and every one, but they add so much colour to the film — they are used brilliantly, and not given so much screen time for their one-dimensional nature to become a detriment to the movie.
And they’re funny. And one supporting character or another steals pretty much every scene in the movie. Usually Knives.
And the main character is pretty funny himself.
If you are anything like us at the Big Bad Blog, you will find that Scott Pilgrim vs The World will give you endless quotable one-liners.
What Sucked
Unfortunately, the supporting characters are not the only ones that are one dimensional. The protagonists are as well, and they do not have the luxury of spending the majority of their time off screen.
For all the (excellent) humour and the brilliant visuals, the movie is a love story. A bizarre romantic comedy. And both the male and female lead are one dimensional.
As the viewer, I never once cared about Scott getting the girl. Ramona was really, really boring. Really boring. And as soon as the evil exes start showing up, the script stops trying to give Scott Pilgrim anything interesting to say or do (other than get in fights and throw off one-liners) — Scott gets boring too. Ramona’s influence?
And the characters aren’t the only thing that is one-dimensional in the movie. The plot is, too. There is not a single plot twist, unless you count having to fight the evil exes. The closest we come is to have the record producer Scott’s band is trying to impress actually being an evil ex-boyfriend.
Here at the Big Bad Blog, we are uncertain that such a linear plot has ever before been put to celluloid. Perhaps that’s the nature of the beast, and part of the cost of having a video-game feel is to have a video-game approach. Beat all seven levels, get the girl at the end. Good work, Mario!
Your blogger does not think this works well in a movie.
We would like to think that subtlety, character development, and interesting plot elements had to be abandoned to fit six books worth of material into less than 120 minutes — that’s less than twenty minutes per book. We plan to read the books to confirm (or deny) this theory. But whatever that verdict may be, as a movie that should stand on its own Scott Pilgrim vs The World is seriously lacking.
We performed a thought experiment here at the Big Bad Blog — as readers, you are welcome to repeat it at home: think of your least favourite movie; the movie you like least of those that you watched all the way through. Was the plot less predictable than Scott Pilgrim’s? Did the protagonist have more depth?
Here at the Big Bad Blog, we cannot think of any. Titanic was less predictable. Maid in Manhattan features more character depth.
The Final Verdict
Scott Pilgrim is a fantastically fun movie — those good and awesome points above are undeniable for anybody with a geeky bone in their body. But in the end it suffers from a lack of attention to what makes movies great: great stories and emotional attachments to the characters on the screen.
At the end of the movie, I wanted Scott to end up with Knives. I was kind of happy when it looked like that was happening. Knives, you see, is the only character that undergoes any kind of change or growth within the movie. She is the only interesting character. I cared about her, and wanted her to get what she wanted — Scott Pilgrim.
And that I cared more about the crazed, seventeen-year-old stalker ex-girlfriend than the leads hurts a little inside.
Because this movie could have been more than just fun.
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