[WATCHED: December 17, 2010] Scott Pilgrim vs the World.
I was delighted to finally get to see Scott Pilgrim vs the World on DVD. And man, it did not disappoint. I love Michael Cera, so even though he’s not who I pictured as Scott Pilgrim, he played the character quite wonderfully (although he was within the realm of the “Michael Cera” character, he had an air of the sinister about him which was quite captivating).
The movie did great job at capturing the hyper real video game quality of the books (I love all the little extra details which were not cute comic book details (like the phones printing RIIIIIIIIING) but simply part of the world they lived in.
I thought that the compression of this long (but not too long) series was wonderfully done. Although I missed some aspects of the book, I thought it was all handled very well. Plus, I liked the increased presence of the awesome Wallace and I really liked the way they adjusted the Knives storyline so that it could conclude at the same time as Ramona’s. That’s very different from the final book, and, while I think the book’s version is more elegant (and fitting a longer story), for the movie, that truncation worked very well and allowed for a fantastic conclusion. The end was great thanks to the introduction of the cool video game that Scott and Knives play early in the movie–a game which was made up for the movie.
I’m also thrilled to finally know how to pronounced Sex Bob-omb and I’m also thrilled to hear how much they rocked (Beck did most of the band music and über-god Nigel Godrich made the score for the rest of the film. Other great bands on the soundtrack include Metric, Broken Social Scene, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala. I sort of ignored the soundtrack when it came out but I think i may have to go check it out now.
So in the movie, Scott must battle Ramona’s seven evil exes to win her love. As for the seven evil exes themselves, they were all fun (and nicely diverse). I enjoyed seeing Ann Veal (her?) working with George Michael Bluth again and Jason Schwartzman was simply terrific as the evil Gideon. Also terrific was Satya Bhabha as the over-the-top first evil ex and Chris Evans as the bad-ass actor boyfriend. I was only bummed that the Katayanagi brothers were given kind of short shrift (but hey you can only have so many characters). The fight scenes were really well executed and fun.
The only weakness I would say in the film is that I thought Ramona was a little flat. It was hard to know just what was so compelling about her for Scott (aside from the act that she was in his mind-portal all that time). The book gives more details that show their relationship build, but the movie left that out. I’ve never seen her in anything else, so I don’t know whose fault that was. This compromises the ending a little bit because the decision between Knives and Ramona is actually kind of difficult (where it really shouldn’t be). And yet, I thought the ending was really well done, with Ellen Wong really stealing the show).
The DVD itself is pretty awesome and there are a ton of special features. Although Scott Pilgrim vs the Bloopers was a major let-down. The movie is so understated that none of the bloopers are over-the-top hilarious. However, the trivia track that you can play during the movie (I watched about ten minutes of it) was very interesting. I especially enjoyed reading how parts of the movie that were finished before the book actually made their way into the book because O’Malley liked them so much.
I’m also thrilled that they filmed the movie in Toronto. The trivia track points out all kinds of interesting locations. From The Torontoist:
The first thing Wright did when he met O’Malley here in 2005 was visit all the real-life locations.”Pretty much everything that was in the book, we shot the same place Bryan had drawn,” he says.
A perfect example is the house in which Scott and his pal Wallace live. In reality, O’Malley lived at 27 Alberta Avenue, though he thinly disguised it as “Albert Avenue.”
As any true fan knows, however, the drawings in the book are actually at number 65, down the street. So, that’s where they shot, turning the garage door into the apartment door.
And there’s plenty more details in that article. Like that those romantic and perilous stairs are real stairs on Baldwin St. (I love crap like that).
It’s a really enjoyable romp of a film, unjustly ignored in the theaters. And perhaps best of all…in no way is it setting itself up for a sequel! A movie that just ends….how novel!
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