In today’s movie climate of so many comic book movies, one of the more interesting debates is how faithful the movie translations should be. It seems that nobody’s found that happy medium of being faithful and taking liberties, or at least found that source material that just lends itself to a faithful movie adaptation. Until now. Edgar Wright’s movie vision of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World not only shows the detail of someone who genuinely loves the source material, but also succeeds translating elements from a book that at first glance you wouldn’t think could be translated to live-action without failing.
Having only read the first of the six Scott Pilgrim books myself, I can only speak to the parts of the movie that deal with that book, but those parts are so spot on it’s ridiculous. It’s kind of amazing how well the characters and the frenetic fight scenes lend themselves so well to Wright’s style of film-making. This is obviously a departure from his previous efforts in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and it’s also his first American film, but he makes the transition flawlessly and still keeps his own sensibilities, eye for detail, and humor in it.
It’s also sort of amazing (both in the book and the film) how we, the viewers, can be so drawn to and even root for characters that are really kind of crappy people. The titular character, Scott, meets Ramona Flowers, who he thinks is the girl of his dreams while he is already dating another girl who he basically just brushes off. Meanwhile, Ramona strings Scott along even though she’s apparently still stuck on one of her ex-boyfriends who she immediately goes back to at the drop of a hat. Nevertheless, we’re left still caring about these people and hoping they can work out their issues and put their pasts behind them.
Even though the idea that everyone has baggage in their past is not even remotely a new idea, this story takes an entirely fresh perspective on dealing with it. In order to be with Ramona, Scott has to literally fight and defeat each of her “7 evil exes” which is obviously a not-so-subtle metaphor for breaking down those walls that people build up with their past that prevent them from moving on. It’s just such a cool idea to see what would normally be boring conversations of rehashing the past turn into video game-inspired fight scenes.
It seems that these days it’s cool and fashionable to hate Michael Cera, and I myself go back and forth on him, since he does tend to play the same awkward kid in everything he does. However skeptical I was going in I think he did a fantastic job as Scott, and going back to the book he plays the dialog exactly how it reads (to me at least). He’s still a awkward, but has a little bit more cockiness (for lack of a better word). Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a great Ramona as well, and although she and Cera have the obvious lead roles, nobody really outshines anybody else. Everybody really plays their roles well so it feels more like watching an ensemble than watching a couple stars and more extras, which is kind of the way it should be.
Technically speaking, Mr. Wright has a game-changer on his hands as far as the fight scenes go in the film. They’re expertly shot and choreographed, and if there are stunt doubles, they’re edited in so seamlessly that there’s no reason for you to be distracted, instead having the opposite effect and drawing you further into the experience. More importantly though, the cartoon and video game-inspired elements are executed so well that you get that same feeling of “how the hell did they do that?” that you got when you saw The Matrix for the first time. I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot of movies coming out in the near future that borrow from this one.
I’ll be very curious to see how well how well this film does commercially, because I don’t feel like Wright and company really made it for a commercial audience. This has cult classic written all over it. You could definitely still enjoy it having not read the books because it genuinely is a fantastic movie in its own right, but if you’re not at least familiar with geek culture, you’ll leave the theater a very very confused individual. This film is a true geek love letter from Edgar Wright and it’s so refreshing to see there are still people out there making movies because they’re passionate about something and not just because it’s “what they do.”
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