Why Scott Pilgrim is the Best Film this Year

I did a few posts leading up to Scott Pilgrim when the trailers first came out, I am a big fan of the comics and of Edgar Wright so this whole project seemed like a dream.

Of course however Hollywood’s principle trade is destroying dreams so as I sat down for the pre-feature trailers I can’t deny I was pretty nervous.

I shouldn’t have been, Edgar Wright delivered on so many levels and pretty much put out the best film this year. I realise this is a pretty big statement especially since Inception has just been and gone but stick with me through this, it’s long but it;s more a purpose in getting all my geekgasm feelings out because a week after I saw the film, I’m still buzzing.

Plot

This section is sans serious spoilers but if you are a really fussy bitch skip it.

If you don’t already know Scott Pilgrim (yeah Plumtree)  is a full time twenty something loser who pretty much sums up the “born in the 80′s” generation, he’s a massive video game and comic nerd, he’s in a crappy garage band, he towing a lot of breakup baggage and he’s actually a bit of a douche.

Some people would question the logic of making the main character “imperfect” but that’s probably the best thing about Scott Pilgrim, that for all the unrealistic explosions and shit that goes off in the film, he is actually a more realistic character than almost ever other hapless romantic comedy character has ever been. Movie Bob over at the Escapist made an especially astute observation on this point regarding the fact that one of the biggest problems with the stereotypical romcom is that the lead characters are often over idealised versions of the directors in their own youth, struggling to make girls understand and appreciated them over the jocks who mistreat them day after day.

This is simply not Scott and I’ve not felt closer to a male main character since reading High Fidelity for the first time back in the late 90s.

OK basic Scott plot; he is in a (tenuous) relationship with a high school-er when he meets the literal girl of his dreams, enter Romona Flowers, hipster skater chick extraordinaire and Scott embarks on a quest to win her heart, unfortunately for Scott, Romona is towing some baggage of her own and her seven evil ex’s are gearing up to wipe Scott out before he and Romona can live happily ever after.

So the stage is set but there’s a twist, see while Scot’s world is very realistic it’s superfueled by video game physics and every fight turns into an epic cross between Dragonball Z and Street Fighter.  In the hands of a lesser director this great comic concept would go to the screen lame but Wright knows exactly what his audience is looking for. Each time a new ex shows up Scott launches into fight mode which ranges from one on one brawls to almost Power-Ranger-esque (or Guyver if your as sad as me and get that reference) amp battles with giant monsters.

Everything about this film is well put together, the soundtrack, the visual effects, the screen play, there is literally no element that I felt was out of place or wrong. The pre credit sequence where we are introduced to Scott and the gang sets an excellent pace and Sex Bob-omb’s half terrible/half genius garage rock is a great opener and apparently all the actors are actually playing, amazing!

As we are slowly introduced to the range of characters it becomes almost obvious about how much both O’Malley and Wright know “get” the people they are writing for, I can put real life names to almost all the characters in Scott Pilgrim and see how they are just like some of the people I grew up with and even still know today.

The story plows on and as we find more about Scott he becomes gradually more likeable but he’s not the only one with flaws and almost every character shows an ugly side somewhere on the way. The ending was significantly changed form the book (probably because it was still being written) but I don’t feel any of the changes took anything away from the film unlike Kick-Ass which massively fucked up.

OK I don’t want to spoil what happens so lets concentrate on the film a little more, first up;

Visuals

As I have already mentioned the visual style of this film is stunning, even the most harsh critic can’t deny the hard work in timing flashes, effects and all sorts of other things alongside the action works perfectly. After the start of the first fight you can see how much love has gone into the various “game” effects and while it’s cheesy I found the “vs.” screens to be really cool to the point where some of them literally had the hairs on my neck standing up (especially Amp vs. Amp). I also really love the way they translated the “visual music” effects form the comic on screen, it’s almost like you can feel the sound waves.

There are also hundreds of little touches (most of them I’m sure we’ll never spot until the DVD extras) like health bars, lighting effects, reactive scenery and the “fun fact” overlay panels from the comics coming and going all the time which work really well and never feel forced in.

Costume and character design is also fantastic to the point where the characters themselves don’t even feel like real movie characters, I’m not sure if it’s make-up or lack of make-up but most of the characters are blemished (spots etc) which you would usually see blitzed from every frame of a movie but help SP seem even more real.

Fight choreography is the best I’ve seen this year (yup even better than Inception antigrav fighting). Most of the actors are young with limited experience yet all of them pull the complex fights scenes off perfectly and Cera in particular does a fantastic job at being beat down on and doing a little ass kicking himself.

Finally the big special effects (explosions, dragons etc) are equally well done, never trying to be too realistic but also keeping at least a little grounded, while no film is immortal to SFX ageing I imagine it will be a while before SP looks old and even then it will still be cool as it will almost fit the theme of the retro gamer image.

Audio

Fantastic use of audio from the opening and as I have already mentioned Sex Bob-omb’s music is a perfect homage to crappy garage rock (think Wyld Stallyns + the Killers) and the choice of music throughtout the film is almost always perfect, for God’s sake even the Spotify promotion play list was ace.

A fantastic audio touch in the film  is the inclusion of “The Voice” (actually done by Bill Hader), the video game voice over who calls out things like “KO!” and “COMBO”, it’s such a tiny touch and technically speaking could have never been included but almost every time it happens I smiled, it’s things like this that I know Wright has overseen and I can’t credit the guy enough for.

If you want an idea of how well sound is used in the film just watch the trailer, it shows you everything you need to know about how sound is used in the film.

To Sum Up

Please go and see Scott Pilgrim at the cinema, whether you are a fan of the comics or not, the only people that I would suggest don’t go to see it are people who genuinely have never played  a single game before or think games and comics are stupid. If you have that attitude then the whole film will seem pointless to you.

It’s a great tribute to our generation and I can’t wait to see the film again especially with the directors commentary.