Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Directed by Edgar Wright
As bass guitarist for a garage-rock band, Scott Pilgrim has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. But when Ramona Flowers skates into his heart, he finds she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army of ex-boyfriends who will stop at nothing to eliminate him from her list of suitors.
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With good video-game adaptations hard to find, it may be that Wright has given us the best video-game inspired film yet, taking many of the conventions of games such as Street Fighter and Tekken and creating a visually exciting and instantly recognisable world for his audience.
Not many films could reference Bollywood, Shakespeare, an NBC sitcom, “Street Fighter” and the filmography of John Hughes without collapsing in a messy heap.
Based on the graphic novels of Bryan Lee O'Malley, "Scott Pilgrim" is a cinematic mashup of the first order, managing to combine (and spoof) elements of modern teen romantic comedies, superhero flicks and arcade games of the "Street Fighter" era.
But when the fighting starts—and there’s a lot of it—1990s-style video games take over; the movie becomes a sort of mash-up homage to Super Mario Bros., Doom, Street Fighter, etc. Through it all, there’s a tension between Scott Pilgrim’s adopted too-cool-for-school attitude and its mosh-pit desperation to be the Hot New Youth Thing that’s actually pretty endearing.
It is a bold, brilliant spectacle, an offbeat romance patterned after a Street Fighter -style video game.
He imagines Scott as a Street Fighter Lancelot out to win the heart of his Guinevere, Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a mercurial punkette whose moods are as changeable as her hair color.
An adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series, the film charts the unlikely adventures of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a 23-year-old who plays bass in punk band Sex Bob-omb (a nod to Super Mario Bros. ), is dating high schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), and is smitten with a mysterious dyed-hair beauty named Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who seems to have materialized straight out of his dreams.
The list of ‘80s and ‘90s video game nods in Pilgrim alone is daunting: Tekken Super Mario Bros. Tetris Zelda and even retro titles like Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man are represented just to name a few.
But when the fighting starts—and there’s a lot of it—1990s-style video games take over; the movie becomes a sort of mash-up homage to Super Mario Bros., Doom, Street Fighter, etc. Through it all, there’s a tension between Scott Pilgrim’s adopted too-cool-for-school attitude and its mosh-pit desperation to be the Hot New Youth Thing that’s actually pretty endearing.
8-bit style graphics adorn the shots, music from a Legend of Zelda game is used in the background, and the name of Scott Pilgrim's band -- the "Sex Bob-Ombs" -- is a direct reference to a character in Super Mario Bros. games.
The laws of physics are dropped in these sequences and the audience is asked to go along with the characters' seemingly superhuman powersfortunately, that is never a problemScott's defeats each culminating in his opponents shattering into gold coins like something out of "Super Mario Bros." It is all quite something to behold.
In referencing Kurt Vonnegut with its use of the last name of the author's "Slaughterhouse-Five" protagonist Billy Pilgrim, the movie seems to promise some amount of time-shifting social criticism.
The result combines the slacker graphic-novel vibe of "Ghost World," the inside-the-video-game conceit of "Tron" and the martial-arts exuberance of "Kung Fu Hustle," as if shaken and stirred by Quentin Tarantino.
At times, it may remind you of other films adapted from graphic novels (notably Ghost World), and even of Wes Anderson, but it's got a madly clever and playful let's-try-it-on prankishness all its own.
Blending his tilted sensibility with that of Canadian writer-artist Bryan Lee O'Malley's-inflected, six-volume "Scott Pilgrim" digests proves a much savvier and astute choice than having, say, the science-fiction, high-adventuremovies be directed by theguy.Like Ghost World and American Splendor adapts a comics series not about superheroes but about prosaic slackers (for what iss Harvey Pekar if not the original slacker?).
Some of those traits come from the graphic novel, but they don’t work onscreen as well as, say, Enid’s determined anti-enthusiasm in the film of Daniel Clowes’s Ghost World (which only just worked).
Michael Cera elevates deadpan to an art, starring as a slacker turned action hero in this wildly inventive comedy that's one of the most vivid and spirited adaptations of a comic book since Spider-Man—;and one of the hippest since Ghost World.
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Or perhaps this is an astute filmmaker who knows what his audience will follow—a love affair punctuated by fight scenes replicated from “Mortal Kombat” or pieces of dialogue bouncing along to the Seinfeld theme.
The video game influenced battle sequences are equally well realized, deliberately recalling every classic fighting game from Street Fighter II to Mortal Kombat to Tekken .
Ramona’s Exes are a hilariously varied lot whose skills correlate with different video game genres; Lucas (Chris Evans), for example, is not only a movie-star caricature, but also a skateboarding maestro, while Todd (Brandon Routh) is a Mortal Kombat -esque telekinetic badass.
Plus it’s fun to watch Cera beat up super-villains a la “Mortal Kombat’’…
Here, nostalgia doesn’t mean old cars or classic rock radio; it’s visual allusions to arcade games such as Mortal Kombat, Pac-Man and Super Mario.
When the lovely, mysterious Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) comes into Scott’s life, it’s essential that Cera suggest some measure of heartsick passion, especially once he’s confronted by Ramona’s seven evil exes, who challenge him to Mortal Kombat-like duels.
His Pilgrim is far more likable than the book version, thematically reminiscent of Bill Paxton's Hudson from Aliens .
The major difference between that and Shaun (or even between Shaun and Wright's sole Pegg-free project, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World ) is that Shaun isn't just throwing out bones to fans (though there are plenty - "We're coming to get you, Barbara!" is the most overt shout-out, but there are a seemingly unlimited number of references to classic zombie films).
Director Edgar Wright, whose credits include “Shaun Of The Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” is less interested in spoofing conventions than in turning them on their head.
The film, which has been directed by Edgar Wright, the cheeky British bad boy who gave us “Shaun of the Dead’’ and “Hot Fuzz,’’ is based on a six-volume graphic novel that you probably haven’t read.
Pretty impressive both as an adaptation and as an exercise in cinematic style, it’s a feat that probably only director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) could have pulled off.
Wright's films were the spoofs "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead," and he inspired a cult following of his own for the innovative, pop savvy sit-com "Spaced."
Director Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead”) crams the film with such video game and graphic novel in-jokes; when Sex Bob-Omb plays, those little wavy sound lines you see in comic books emanate outward.
That’s because Winstead’s performance–never laughing and delivering a smile like the “Mona Lisa”–is akin to Zooey Deschanel’s character in just about anything she’s done but especially in “(500) Days of Summer.”
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The anarchic Warner Bros. cartoonist turned feature director Frank Tashlin ( Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? ) would have been too happy watching Wright at play: Locations feature pop-up “fun facts,” sounds come with illustrative words (“ding dong!”), a smooch triggers pink hearts.
To me the film feels like what Lindsay Anderson might have made if he was a young filmmaker today - and not quite as angry as he was when he made If... and O Lucky Man!.