Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
UNIVERSAL
RELEASED 25 August 2010
It’s almost unheard of to see a new film and think the words ‘instant classic’ as soon as the end credits begin to roll. Going back over the last ten years, only ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008), ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2008), ‘Pans Labyrinth’ (2007), and the ‘Lord of the Rings’ (2001-2003) trilogy immediately jumped out to me at the time as faultless, timeless classics. Now we have ‘Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World’, a film that has successfully combined the worlds of video games, comics, and music into a pulsating, generation-defining movie. Nobody under the age of thirty-seven (speaking personally) will fail to enjoy this movie. For every year over that age, I wager you’ll miss out on more of the cultural references (which may lessen your enjoyment slightly), but you should still be thrill to the endless wit and action jumping off the screen.
Based on the series of black and white graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22-year old drifting through life, playing bass in an up-and-coming band called Sex Bob-omb, and dating a 17-year old schoolgirl. When he falls for new-girl-in-town Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Scott discovers he must defeat her seven evil exes! In this fantasy world (taking place in Scott’s head?), Scott gets punched miles into the air, slashes enemies into coins with a flaming sword, and even gains an extra life. You might be able to tell this isn’t a movie to be taken literally. Don’t think, just feel!
I can’t emphasise enough how seriously impressed I was after seeing ‘Scott Pilgrim’. What director Edgar Wright has acheived is the kind of thing that people just didn’t think was possible… until someone does it. It’s like breaking the four-minute mile, or the mind-blowing exploits of Usain Bolt. All the past criticism of video game film adaptations has been pretty much on the button. Usually they’re a bunch of special effects looking for a story and script (yes ‘Prince of Persia’, you jump to mind). But video games can often simply be an exciting, raucous blast! And that’s exactly what Wright has put onscreen. Every single ‘evil ex’ battle (known as Boss Battles in video games, with one here punningly titled a Bass Battle (as in guitar) here) perfectly captures the power, the speed, and the intensity of fighting an end-of-level boss yourself in a game such as ‘Tekken’ or ‘Mortal Kombat’. There’s a scene that resembles the video game version of ‘Tony Hawks Skateboarding’, and there’s even a pyramid Scott must climb at the end that wouldn’t be out of place in a Mario game. From the opening 8-bit style Universal logo, so many snippets of video game culture have been mashed together in this movie, but they all serve the story and are there for pure escapisim.
The comic look is amplified by hand-drawn-looking words and movement shapes accompanying bands playing, the fight scenes, and title graphics that add extra comic info to onscreen characters. It’s like Edgar Wright shot the film attempting to have at least one verbal and one visual joke in every scene, and then decided to add a couple more in the editing room, giving the film incredible repeat value.
And the soundtrack reminds you of your youth, songs that seem instantly recognisable (but aren’t because they’ve been written just for the movie!). As well as the great band tracks, there’s a brilliant instrumental score by Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, and I must mention the endlessly entertaining musical cues that reference video games, movies and TV (see if you can spot Wright’s love of ‘Flash’ towards the end of the film, as well as the fairly obvious ‘Seinfeld’ nod).
This is all before I’ve mentioned the joke-a-minute script! Cera is on top ‘geek’ form, Kieran Culkin ‘gays’ up the place, Brandon Routh is ‘super’ (man), and every other cast member is a blast. ‘Scott Pilgrim’ channels all the heart and comedy of 80’s legend John Hughes for the first time since those teen days of ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Pretty in Pink’.
‘Scott Pilgrim’ is a movie for everyone, but more importantly, it’s a movie dedicated to a whole generation.
FIVE OUT OF FIVE