In what has been a lackluster summer at the movies thus far, things have finally start to pick up as we head into the fall. Thanks to the brain-bending Inception, it has been revealed that, if you have a film with originality and a working brain, people will come see it. Add to that the similarly inventive Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a comic book adaptation that is both clever and intriguing without insulting the viewer’s intelligence.
True, comic/graphic novel adaptations have been all the rage lately, but what sets apart Pilgrim from the rest of its ilk is a sense of inventiveness on a level one only sees in the more ambitious entries in the sub-genre. Think 300 or Sin City.
Like those films, Pilgrim has a signature look and style that sets it apart from others. It’s almost like a video game adaptation for a game that doesn’t actually exist, but totally should. Might I smell a movie tie-in waiting to happen?
The plot revolves around the titular Pilgrim (Michael Cera), the bass player for an alt-rock band that falls for Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Death Proof)- only there’s a catch: if he wants to date her, he must defeat her seven evil exes. That’s about it, really, but what saves the film is its sense of humor and inventiveness.
To wit, whenever Pilgrim defeats an ex, they turn into a pile of coins, Super Mario Brothers-style, complete with the accompanying sound effects. The challenges themselves are likewise quirky, including everything from a skateboarding dare to a bass guitar battle.
The film is also littered with fun in-joke references. It may be the first film I’ve seen that doesn’t just feature visual cues or dialogue taken from other movies/TV shows, but auditory nods.
This is to say, the film features sound effects like the familiar Seinfeld music (followed by a tongue-in-cheek sampling of canned audience laughter in the subsequent scene); or the old-school computer start-up noises (played as Pilgrim wakes up in the morning); and various video game allusions.
Another key element of the film is likewise auditory in nature: the soundtrack. The boffo score by Nigel Godrich, best known for his work as a producer with the likes of Radiohead & U2, references everything from Argento mainstays Goblin (who scored Suspiria and the original Dawn of the Dead) to John Carpenter (Escape from New York) to a video-game-style 8-bit version of the Universal Pictures theme song.
Further, the soundtrack also features real-life performers providing the music of the fictional bands within the film. Pilgrim’s band, Sex Bob-Omb (another Mario Bros. reference), adapts original music by Beck; others use music by Broken Social Scene, Metric, and Dan the Automator for each of their respective bands.
Meanwhile, the soundtrack also features bands referenced in the comic book & others that fit the bill just fine; we’re talking Frank Black, the Stones, T.Rex, the Black Lips, and even lesser-known bands like Plumtree (whose song provided Scott Pilgrim with his name) and Beachwood Sparks.
However, what makes the film are undeniably the actors, who ground the results in just enough realism to make it all count emotionally, rather than being merely a display of hipster cool and spot-the-references.
Granted, the film features a hefty display of heightened hyper-realism which makes it tough to take the more realistic elements too seriously, but by now Cera (Superbad) has his nerd-shtick down to such a science that we’re immediately invested in his character.
Cera has a gift for even making cads likable (as he showed in Youth in Revolt) and his character, a lady-killer with no remorse for the girls he’s left strewn in his wake, courts unlike-ability at every turn.
Yet Cera is so self-deprecating and funny that we can’t help but forgive him for his dubious actions, including the unceremonious dumping of his adorable girlfriend Knives Chau (Ellen Wong).
Also well worth a mention are Kieran Culkin (Igby Goes Down) as Pilgrim’s gay bestie and roomie; Oscar-nominated Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) as his snarky sister; and the delightfully acerbic Alison Pill (Dan in Real Life) and Aubrey Plaza (Funny People) as Pilgrim’s band mate/ex and friend, respectively.
Director Edgar Wright, best known for Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, adds another notch into his belt of quirky flicks, and the film is arguably his best effort yet. At the very least, it’s his most inventive work to date.
True, once you get the gist of things, Pilgrim, much like an actual video game, can become a bit redundant and repetitive, particularly towards the end, when the excellent dialogue takes a back seat to the action.
However, there’s way too much sheer creativity and imagination on display here not to give credit where credit’s due, especially in a movie-going climate where intelligence has consistently taken a back seat to mind-numbing action and brain-melting idiocy. Here, you get a healthy dose of wit to go with the latter, and it proves to make all the difference.
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