Scott Pilgrim review 3

Sigh. If you haven’t figured it out yet over the last couple of days via my status updates and tweets I really liked Scott Pilgrim. It is unlike any movie ever made and unfortunately with its weak box office opening of about 10 million dollars it is not likely to be duplicated any time soon. Hard to believe a movie that makes 10 million dollars is a failure but when it cost about 50 million to make it not hard to see the handwriting on the wall. This will likely put the brakes on some smaller comic related movie projects being made which is a shame. Scott Pilgrim is worth your time and money. So if you were one of the few who skipped it last weekend and still want to see it you better move fast before it’s gone. Here’s a small spoiler free review.

Scott Pilgrim is in a band and suddenly in love with the mysterious Ramona Flowers that will lead to all kinds of trouble for the Scott the slacker and some really great fight scenes. You probably know by now that Scott must fight seven evil ex-boyfriends to be able to date Ramona. As much fun as the fight scenes are there is more to Scott Pilgrim than just mayhem. There are plenty of nods to video gaming in this that has you feeling like you are watching a game of Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat play out in front of you combined with a little Mario Brothers thrown in for fun. While all of this is great what you get as a bonus is some great acting performances from the ladies in Scott’s life. The women of Scott Pilgrim definitely try to steal the show and add to the flavor of this movie beginning with Ramona Flowers played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Ramona is beautiful, snarky and mysterious while being plagued by ex-boyfriends who think if they can’t have her nobody can. Winstead manages to hold the movie together while being elusive but vulnerable dream girl that launches all of these fights. A difficult role but she pulls it off wonderfully.

Some other performances worth noting are Anna Kendrick who plays Scott’s sister Stacy who takes him to task for dating a high school girl at the start film and then later scolds him that maybe the next time he should date the girl without eleven evil ex-boyfriends. Its only seven Scott reminds her. “Oh that’s not so bad” she replies. We simply don’t get to see enough of her. Speaking of that schoolgirl Ellen Wong who plays Knives Chau turns in a brilliant performance as the girl who is in love for the first time and gets her heart crushed by Pilgrim once he sees Ramona. She walks the fine line between being crazy but still likable enough for the audience to care about what happens to her. Drummer Kim Pine another Pilgrim ex-girlfriend is played by Allison Pill who does more with a few good glares than most actors do with actual lines although she does have a few good zingers aimed at Scott. Finally in a minor but scene stealing role is that of Aubrey Plaza who plays Julie Powers who is described completely in one small sentence “Julie has issues”.  Julie is a foul-mouthed beauty radiates hatred toward Scott that is so hot you can feel the heat coming off the screen. Plaza looked familiar to me but I could not place where I’d seen her until I went home a checked her credits. She played the nerdy girl comic who was the only bright spot in the awful “Funny People” with Adam Sandler about a douche bag comic who is dying and then gets a second chance on life but still remains a douche in the end. Why do I know this? Well over a year of unemployment and insomnia proves I’ll watch anything between 2 and 4 am.

I am at a loss to why this movie failed at the box office. I have been told there are various reasons including the ludicrous people over forty don’t get it (funny I’m over forty and I loved it) to nerds and people under twenty don’t get the old school gaming references. I’m a nerd and I got it and I assumed everyone had played some version of the coin based Mario franchise at some point. Maybe it is because people hate Micheal Cera, I don’t know because he doesn’t bother me. This one seems to be headed to video quickly. People complain that Hollywood never does anything different but then when it does they stay away in droves. You get what you deserve I suppose. You might as well start queuing up for Saw 3D. It’s coming to a theatre near you. Oh boy, I can’t wait.



Comments

[Kelly]

Most of the reviews I heard/read all "reviewed" the fanboy/gamer audience more than the movie...I don't think that helped the box office at all. Scared some people off because it wasn't their kind of movie.