Escape to the Movies: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

[Firia]

Scott Pilgram VS the world, as a franchise name, has gone largely unnoticed by me. But in the past 72 hours, I've seen a game, a comic book series (which is apperentally the origin), and a movie. My interest was most peeked by Bob here. I'll give it a shot.

 

[Funkiest Monkey]

Oh man, I CANNOT wait for this film. I loved the books so much, and I want the game too (It's basically a modern River City Ransom, why wouldn't you want it?).

[sub]Bit weird how you never mentioned the books in this review though, Bob.[/sub]

 

[lokiduck]

Man are you right. I just got back from the movie and the whole time I was saying to myself "Wow this is a gamer movie."

I kept thinking of how people say there hasn't ever been a good gamer movie and even though this is based off of a comic series, it is seriously a gamer movie. I mean it actually feels like a game that you are watching be played with an actually deep story.

You were right about how this film is deeper than it seems, and all I know is I'm reading the comics now because I had avoided them until now due to not having enough funds with the other stuff I've been buying.

Also I am glad to see Canada be canada, after seeing it be Seattle so many fricking times XD. It'll be an awesome day when Vancover can be it's self again finally instead of the "Eh" speaking Seattle.

 

[AgentChunk]

That made me cringe to be honest.

 

[ohgodalex]

This was seriously the single greatest movie I have ever seen. Why aren't you watching it right now?

 

[JakBandit2208]

Man I went and saw this last night it was great and Michael Cera actually acted for once

 

[StriderShinryu]

Saw both this and The Expendables today.. and damn it was a great day of movie going.

Expendables is exactly what you want it to be. Great cast that has clear chemistry together, interesting characters with back stories you actually want to know more about, guns, cool fights, and shit blowing up. The low reviews this one is getting are, honestly, ticking me off a bit. My only real complaint is that the fights are shot in the modern style of the camera being too close to the action and too many jump cuts so you don't really get a good view of the combat. We know at least some of these guys can do amazing fight scenes but it's almost like they were afraid to show it because they didn't want anyone not Statham or Li to be shown up. Does it have a deep storyline and hidden meanings? No, it's not that type of movie and if you don't know that going in you're obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Pilgrim was amazing and I'm seriously considering seeing it again on my next day off. Bob's review pretty much covered it all, but I'll say as someone who had no knowledge of the Pilgrim story/universe beyond the trailers prior to seeing it, I still loved every moment of it. What surprised me most is how underneath all the game shoutouts and actually funny humour, it actually is a great story with really great characters. This is a story and characters I probably would have cared about enough without all the window dressing.

 

[tombman888]

WoW, looks nothing like i thought it would... and im glad =) well, ima off to see this in about 4 hours so heres hoping its really good, which from the sounds of it, it is.

 

[werd123]

As you can say Bob was on the spot about this movie, I could say I liked this better then Hot Fuzz (another Edgar Wright movie) because of the little touches about romance, which I liked in Shawn of the Dead and wasn't present in Hot Fuzz. The humour is good and not "twee-hipster" enough to annoy you, it will be the visual style and fast pace that will annoy people over-30.

I don't know how many this will make money though, this movie has had SO many advanced screenings (I went on Wednesday after I missed a free screening on Monday). So most people who really likes the comic books have seen it already.

 

[Knightofthefort]

it seems i failed the second geek acid test, what was the answer?

 

[mchoueiri]

meh looks stupid gonna give it a pass

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

The Michael Cera cynics are missing out if they stubbornly refuse to see this movie purely because it has Michael Cera. Sure it's annoying that he's always playing the same role, but this movie is just too good for a minor hang-up like that. It isn't just "okay" like his other movies.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

it seems i failed the second geek acid test, what was the answer?

I don't think it was a "what is this from" sort of question, and more of a "does this look cool to you" sort of question.

[sub]Bit weird how you never mentioned the books in this review though, Bob.[/sub]

Uhh... yeah he did. He didn't go into a lot of detail about the books because this is about the movie and not the books, but he mentions the books and talks about how the story comes-off as a little rushed by having to pack 6 books into one movie, and even mentions how the final bits of the movie were improvised since the book series wasn't done when filming started. It's about as much mention as the comics need, really.

 

[Jimmybobjr]

HRmmmm..

Movie Bob lost me at "Romantic" part of "Romantic Comedy"

 

[Mythrignoc]

I have to say, I've been watching your reviews a lot lately. It used to be that I never trusted reviewers of any kind because I've seen far too many sell out by being biased in favor of the hollywood blockbuster movies with amazingly huge budgets and never really giving the lower class movies a chance, Splice being a prime example of just that.

I hesitate to trust reviewers not only for that but because the exact same thing happened in video game reviews when I had to wait a year to buy ES4:Oblivion. It was 2006, I was still in high school, and generally Naive. But I saw probably 20 different game reviewing places give the game 9 to 10/10 or 4 to 5/5, and yet when I finally got a system that could handle the game, I found out just how much it quite literally sucked without mods. Not one single area in the game has any real soul or innovation.

I'm really glad to have finally found a reviewer not only with integrity but who has a similar interest and taste as me (about 9/10 movie reviews I agree with).

I almost half expected you to simply go with the atypical "it mixes video game logic with romance so what's not to love," and leave it at that but I'm glad to see you delved deeper than that, as I was kind of sketchy on whether I should see this movie. I like the concept and initial idea of video game logic in reality (akin to the futurama episode using the "What if" machine to ask "What if the world were more like a video game") but the cheesy romance comedy could seriously undermine the whole movie.

So I'm glad to see that even the romantic comedy portion of the movie is at the very least, catchy and intuitive, as opposed to predictable and cliche like damn near every romantic comedy to come out in the last 5 to 10 years (Seriously, "Good Luck Chuck?" What the fuck was the point of that movies existence other than to further Dane Cooks already profoundly shitty comedy career?)

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Canada playing Canada?

*jumps off the fence*

I'm seeing this!

I'm sure this will be a Rom Com I'll actually enjoy.

 

[Knight Templar]

Holding on par with Inception? Then I've gotta watch it.

 

[Nostalgia Ripoff]

I wonder when they're going to make a live-action MegaMan movie?

They did. But it's fan made, and legitimately good.
http://screwattack.com/videos/Mega-Man

 

[Apples_McGrind]

It's a shame I'll probably never know if this movie is actually good or not, due to my boycott of anything containing Michael Cera in it - especially after the double fistfuck of Nick and Nora and Year One.

Yes those movies sucked but damn you should really reconsider that boycott, at least for this movie. Saw it today and I was blown away by how good it was. Everyone, including Michael Cera cynics need to see this and be surprised how he pulls off the likable jerk. Also because the movie is utterly fantastic.

 

[Falseprophet]

Just got back and it was fantastic! I couldn't stop laughing for the first 3/4 of the film, and it captures the spirit of the books even if some of the deeper character development was seriously trimmed for the time constraints. Score another win for Edgar Wright.

WAIT! Toronto doesn't actually work on video game rules? ...ouch, my dreams.

Toronto does work on video game rules. Specifically the rules for Frogger. You take your life in your hands when you cross Queen Street.

Hahaha - no. Michael Cera plays one character over and over again. Ask him to step out of his comfort zone and play a different character and I'm sure he'd fail miserably. Much like Steve Carrel.

Well, that's an interesting point. How many comic actors actually do more than one schtick? I'm sure a few would come to mind if I thought harder on it, but isn't Jack Black usually Jack Black, and Seth Rogen usually Seth Rogen, and Jason Lee usually Jason Lee? Some comedic actors transition into competent, even excellent dramatic roles, like Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks and Jamie Foxx, but that usually comes after a decade or so in the business.

In any case, Michael Cera is basically Michael Cera in this film, or rather, Michael Cera with ass-kicking. But I think he was well-cast. Scott Pilgrim is supposed to be an annoying loser. Like many other epic stories with big ensemble casts of characters, the main character is always the least-interesting character! I don't know if it's because he has to be the blandest everyman so the audience can project themselves onto him, or because the supporting characters are allowed to be fun and quirky in a two-dimensional way while the protagonist has to get more character development that most genre writers can't pull off, but that's certainly the case here. The supporting cast was fantastic with what little they had to work with. It would have been nice to get into Kim Pine's and Envy's backstories a bit more, and make Ramona more likeable, but they did a good job for two hours.