{"id":491,"date":"2010-08-13T07:58:58","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T14:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=491"},"modified":"2010-08-13T07:58:58","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T14:58:58","slug":"daily-dose-review-scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=491","title":{"rendered":"Daily Dose Review: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cScott Pilgrim vs. the World\u201d defines its audience from the moment the studio logo appears.\u00a0 The earth spins into view rendered in blocky Atari graphics, then \u201cUniversal\u201d wraps around it in lettering reminiscent of the original Donkey Kong or Pac-Man games.<\/p>\n

If you recognize those references, then you\u2019ll probably get most of the movie\u2019s jokes.\u00a0 If not, well, see it anyway because it\u2019s going to be the most original film to play American theatres all year.<\/p>\n

The movie is based on Brian Lee O\u2019Malley\u2019s comic book series, which is hugely popular among teens and twentysomethings.\u00a0 That\u2019s probably an understatement, actually.\u00a0 O\u2019Malley\u2019s books might be to this generation what the John Hughes movies were to mine.<\/p>\n

Just like the comics, the movie\u2019s set-up is simple and self-consciously absurd.<\/p>\n

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a twenty-two year-old aimless geek living in Toronto.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t have much trouble attracting girls, mostly because he plays bass in a band called Sex Bob-omb, but he has a talent for leaving them bitter after the break-up.\u00a0 At the moment, he\u2019s wasting time with a seventeen year-old named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong).<\/p>\n

Then along comes Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is beautiful, aloof, mysterious, and dies her hair a new color every week-and-a-half.\u00a0 Scott is smitten instantly and somehow stumbles his way into dating her.<\/p>\n

Which might kill him, because Ramona has seven evil exes, each with superpowers, who show up one by one intending to kill Ramona\u2019s new love interest.\u00a0 The exes are lead by Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman), who has a special hold over Ramona.<\/p>\n

Scott must decide whether Ramona is worth fighting for and discover his own powers if he is to defeat the exes.<\/p>\n

\u201cScott Pilgrim\u201d is hard to describe.\u00a0 It\u2019s foremost a comedy, but it\u2019s also an indie-style romance, an action movie, and a comic book adaptation, with huge doses of videogame influence.\u00a0 And none of that mentions the wealth of other pop culture in-jokes.<\/p>\n

Or the unique style.\u00a0 No one makes movies like Wright, whose previous features (\u201cShaun of the Dead\u201d and \u201cHot Fuzz\u201d) are already film geek favorites, and \u201cScott Pilgrim\u201d is distinctive even for him.<\/p>\n

The most telling comparison is \u201cSpaced,\u201d the British TV series Wright directed.\u00a0 Like that series, \u201cScott Pilgrim\u201d shifts effortlessly among reality, parody, and fantasy vignettes.\u00a0 Call it magical realism for the Millennial generation.<\/p>\n

The action sequences all take on videogame and\/or comic aesthetics.\u00a0 But even during the dramatic or comedic scenes, graphics appear unexpectedly, like when Scott visits the restroom and a \u201cPee Bar\u201d shows up and goes from full to empty.\u00a0 Or the many times the screen splits into multiple frames like a comic.\u00a0 Or when words appear and characters interact with them.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, this style won\u2019t work for everybody and it dominates the story much of the time.\u00a0 But this is the best use of comic book aesthetics since \u201cSin City,\u201d and Wright combines everything with his trademark wit.<\/p>\n

Wright\u2019s movies are viewing experiences, which is the highest praise I ever give.<\/p>\n

The movie boasts an incredible list of young talent who give perfect performances.\u00a0 It\u2019s a breakout film for both Winstead and Wong, Kieran Culkin is riotous as Scott\u2019s oversexed gay roommate, and Schwartzman\u2019s Gideon is a hilariously passive aggressive villain.<\/p>\n

Fans of the comics need to know that the movie covers the entire series, including the just released sixth and final installment.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t follow the comics exactly, but the adaptation is faithful enough to earn O\u2019Malley\u2019s stamp of approval.<\/p>\n

\u201cScott Pilgrim\u201d is destined to become synonymous with its time.\u00a0 Someday we\u2019ll look back on it as a snapshot of 2010\u2014a capsule of the actors, music, books, and technology that mattered at the moment.<\/p>\n

Most movie fans can watch 99% of Hollywood movies and know what comes next at every turn.\u00a0 Hollywood rarely takes chances and allows filmmakers to do something unique, so we have to seize the moment when they do.<\/p>\n

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Most awesomely epic movie of 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,21,11,17,20,16,18,47,14],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-edgar-wright","tag-ellen-wong","tag-film","tag-jason-schwartzman","tag-mary-elizabeth-winstead","tag-michael-cera","tag-movies","tag-reviews","tag-scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world","has-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}