Scott Pilgrim vs the World

[andrewducker]

Was awesome.

It took a terribly ordinary story, told repeatedly in thousands of soap operas, and frames it in the language of video games, turning it into something quite extraordinary.

It doesn't help that the entire cast is made of awesome, particularly Kieran Culkin and Jason Schwartzman. Michael Cera is probably perfectly suited for playing Scott, because (like the comic book) I spent most of the film wanting to slap him repeatedly with a wet fish. And Mary Elizabeth Winstead is effortlessly cool.

If you're at all geeky then go see it. Julie and I both enjoyed it an awful lot.

Comments

[andrewducker]

The one thing that did annoy me slightly was the bit where the Ramona's lesbian ex turns up, and Ramona effectively denies her as being "just a phase" in a manner that seemed rather unfair to her. Not that this hasn't happened to real people, it just seems like one of those tropes that turns up a _lot_. I'd rather have had Ramona say "So I've dated women sometimes, live with it."

I don't know if this is also in the comic, as I've only made it a couple of books in.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I also 'liked' the way that the guys all died through violence/the power of awesome music/etc but the girl died of sexual excitement...

[andrewducker]

See downstream comments for how the book managed this better.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

"It was just a phase!"/"You had a sexy phase?" is in the comic, but Roxy is around for rather longer and Ramona's bond with her is clearer, so it seems more like Ramona's just being her usual defensive self.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, she was coming across as defensive, in a way that people do. Given more space I can see it working better.

I should probably get around to buying the rest of the books at some point. I enjoyed the first one, but I wasn't as blown away as everyone else was.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Also Roxy dies by being cut in half with a samurai sword, rather than being poked in the back of the knee.

[andrewducker]

Ok, that's definitely annoying. I could cope with Scott being incapable of defending himself against a woman, on the grounds of his general crapness, and having to have Ramona get him started, but the knee-poking thing was just ridiculous.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

There's lots of slightly odd chopping and changing with the film. Roxy and Ramona do fight but it is Scott who defeats Roxy (as Niall says, with a sword), Ramona's hammer fight is actually with Knives, the film then shifts this confrontation to the end (completely changing it). And it is Scott who deploys the knee tickle against Envy in the books.

In general, I think the film's treatment is extremely problematic (my review is up at Strange Horizons tomorrow).

[andrewducker]

I'll look forward to it. I enjoyed lots of the film, but found myself grimacing a few times.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

My only (slight) complaint was that I'd have liked better fight choreography, someone from old school (80s, early 90s) Hong Kong movies. Otherwise, it was a ton of fun.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Didn't like it at all. :-(

[andrewducker]

Sorry to hear that dude. What didn't you like?

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

Visually I thought it was pretty interesting (in an Eternal Sunshine meets Speed Racer kind of way) but by the time ex number 5 showed up, I was genuinely relieved that battles 5 and 6 were going to happen at the same time.

As a comedy, I didn't find it very funny.

As an action film, I thought it got repetitive pretty quickly.

As a romance I found it impossible to relate to: I couldn't find any emotional truth to it. Scott's not likable, which I was sort of fine with. Ramona is utterly unknowable, and the other characters are broadly drawn charactertures. I could wryly observe them but I didn't care about any of them.

I did like Chris Evans and Brandon Routh. And Thomas Jane's cameo was fun.

The videogame references I found fairly confounding. They seemed to be much more rooted in our generation than the generation of the characters...

[andrewducker]

I liked the variation in the different methods used to defeat exes. Only one of them goes down by straight combat, after that it's death by skateboard, death by vegan police, little death, death by music, and then the big showdown with all the shenanigans around it.

I found bits of the comedy funny (particularly Wallace).

I can certainly see that point of view with the romance - it was terribly blank.

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

To clarify slightly, I don't think the love story actually needed to be believable or even relatable: it's a parody, it's intentionally ridiculous.

The problem was that, for me, it didn't resonate emotionally, or on a visceral, gut level.

I liked it visually (but think the visuals might have been oversold) and Chris Evan's eyebrows were excellent.

And I've got little doubt that it's exactly the film Edgar Wright set out to make. I just didn't like it.

[andrewducker]

I totally agree about the visceral level. The film never grabbed me on that level either.

[andrewducker]

Oh, and Julie absolutely loved the videogame references - and she's 10 years younger. There's been a Zelda and a Mario pretty much constantly for the last 25 years, and so long as you understand the idea of "you get coins for killing bad guys", and high scores, you're sorted.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing people mention Chris Evans... who I'm pretty sure didn't make an appearance. I went to the IMDB; I was thinking of a very different Chris Evans.