SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD review
SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD review
Aug 12
If there’s one thing I hate about being a gamer, it’s the culture that goes along with the title. You know, the bespectacled twerps who chorus “The princess is in another castle” and laugh hysterically; the neckbearded dweebs who argue the pros and cons of the battle systems in the latest Final Fantasy; and, more seriously, the 30-something journalists who become whiny and indignant whenever someone questions their favourite form of entertainment.
I was worried that Scott Pilgrim vs The World would be just another link in the solipsistic circle-jerk that is geek culture, and, sure enough, there are dozens of references to all things geek, from X-Men and Star Wars shout-outs to the inclusion of music lifted directly from Super Smash Bros. and The Legend Of Zelda. From the very first frames of Pilgrim – when an 8-bit Universal logo rolls to a chiptune version of the Uni theme – director Edgar Wright wants you to know exactly who this movie was made for; that, if you don’t know what chiptunes are, you’re probably not going to get Pilgrim on the level it was intended.
Thankfully, there’s a lot more to Scott Pilgrim than first meets the eye. Beyond hip young actors delivering deadpan zingers, beyond the 8-bit influenced soundtrack, and beyond the sometimes-intrusive on-screen video game icons (a “Pee Meter” – really?), there’s a good movie in Scott Pilgrim vs The World.
Pilgrim’s strongest selling card is its humour, which, thankfully, isn’t content with the kind of geek jokes that make people like me roll their eyes. There are good old-fashioned sight gags, one-liners, running jokes, character quirks – and just wait for the pop culture gag that rolls out halfway through, apropos of nothing; it’s a beautiful thing to behold. The humour alone is worth the price of admission, regardless of your opinion of video games, geek culture, or Michael Cera.
The visual style is similarly eclectic but effective, utilising dynamic screen ratios and sharp lighting styles to keep viewers on their toes; there is an undeniably fresh look to the film that will appeal to casual observers, and there’s an 8-bit edge to some of the effects that, for better or for worse, will help cement the film, as well as the late noughties / early teens in general, as “that time when the 80s was popular again.”
In fact, I can already see Pilgrim working as some kind of cultural touchstone in the not-too-distant future. Geek culture is huge now – I remember a time when it used to be just, you know, for geeks – and Scott Pilgrim vs The World is, essentially, a film by geeks, for geeks. It’s about a bass player in a scrappy band (called Sex Bob-omb — geddit? Incidentally, the band is awful) with few ambitions in life, and a closet full of messy relationships that he doesn’t really care about. It’s fundamentally of-the-moment, cashing in on the hipster craze, the retro revival, and lo-fi indie music all at once; it’s so much a product of its time that, when we look back on it in twenty years’ time, we’ll probably wonder “What were we thinking?” A lot like the 80s in that respect, then.
Anyway, for the first two acts, it all works. The goofy story, the at-times silly characters, the constant stream of jokes and cinematic sleights of hand – it works. The last act, the climactic showdown, doesn’t work so well. It gets a little too serious – and preachy – for its own good, and reneges on the promises it made earlier on – namely, that it was all for a laugh, that it was more style than substance.
This swing in focus is most evident in the character of Ramona, the alternately pink / blue / green-haired girl of Scott’s dreams. The lines she spouts at the end of the movie sound clunky and ridiculous, like Edgar Wright (and fellow writer Michael Bacall) have spent too much time playing Final Fantasy or Zelda or some other equally poorly written video game, and the bad writing has started to rub off. It jars because the rest of the dialogue is playful, hip and funny; when the film brakes for the serious scenes, it just doesn’t quite work as well.
But it doesn’t really matter. Scott Pilgrim vs The World is idiosyncratic, funny, and fresh. It will leave its mark in viewers’ brains whether they like it or not. Plus – judging from the way people are gushing about the original manga on every film and video game blog I visit – Pilgrim has a built-in audience, a rent-a-crowd that will, even if the movie doesn’t enter the pop culture lexicon, howl its praises until it becomes a bona fide cult classic, probably in its home theatre release.
And what else is there to say about Scott Pilgrim vs The World? You’ll either like it, or you won’t. Putting my mind in the shoes of a casual observer, or non-gamer, I imagine Pilgrim might play as a funny but kooky flick, long on comedy but short on cohesion and depth.
But what do I know? Like it or not, I’m lumped in the same category as the people who think the “Another castle” joke is a bottomless pit of laughter, an esoteric secret handshake of some kind, and a cultural milestone. They will doubtless love this movie like it came straight from Miyamoto’s sacred table. For the rest of us – even more so than usual – it’s a matter of personal taste. Wait — you got that Miyamoto reference, didn’t you?
Scott Pilgrim vs The World
