Friday, August 13, 2010

Scott Pilgrim VS My High Standards.

So, I saw Scott Pilgrim VS The World at the midnight showing. All in all, I enjoyed the movie. Even if I was up to my balls in hipsters in the theater. First off, I'd just like to say that I may or may not have missed out on ten or so minutes of the movie. There was a skip and no one could really tell if it was intentional or not, so.... My knowledge may be incomplete. As usual, stuff I like comes first.

The cast in this is amazing. This movie had one of the best casts I've seen in a long time. Everyone not only looked the part, but they acted the part too. Even Michael Cera... Most of the time at least. He kept alternating between Scott and Michael Cera. Kieran Culkin stole the show as Wallace Wells. Seriously, I could not imagine him as Wallace at all until he spoke. Allison Pill made a a hilarious and sexy Kim Pine, and Ellen Wong might just be the cutest thing to ever go on a movie screen. It was also nice to see Brandon Routh again. I love that guy and he cracked me up in this one. All of the Evil Exes were great though. Like I said, fantastic cast.

There's a rad cameo by Thomas Jane as well. Seriously, this movie has Superman, The Punisher and Captain America/Human Torch. Nearly as impressive as how many action stars are in The Expendables, no?

Next is the soundtrack. All I really need to say, for me at least, is that it has exclusive songs by Beck. I'm such a massive fan of his it's not even funny. The score was perfect for the tone of the film though. Lots of classic rock, indie rock, and some pretty cool techno stuff too. The soundtrack is definitely a winner in my book.

Visually, the movie is one of the best I've seen in a long time. The flashback scenes are all told using panels from the comic, and they kept Scott's ratings for everyone. Stuff from the comics like the sound effects, the pee meter, and the coins were all kept. The fight scenes were also very nice-looking. Unlike some other big blockbuster that also featured a high-profile director, Edgar Wright knows how to do a great action scene.

And it's very faithful to the comic. Even the stuff that wasn't in the comic would've felt right at home in the comic. In my opinion, the fights with Lucas Lee and the Katayanagi twins were better in the movie than they were in the comic. The fight with Roxie even had stuff from the Free Comic Day issue. There was also a Battle of the Bands plot added that I dug too. Didn't really affect the story too much, but it set up the fight with Ken and Kyle.

And there was a ton of stuff cut, but it wasn't anything that hampered the film. There were side characters cut, but they kept nearly all of them. The only really big omissions were Knives' dad and Lisa Miller, and those would have been a bit too much in a film that already had a big cast. Unlike The Last Airbender, they kept characters who weren't in the main four or so.

Now I gotta deal with what I didn't like.... mutter mumble mutter gripe.


The pacing was just a bit much. It wasn't as condensed as I thought it'd be, but there was a lot of stuff in this movie. I mean, the movie adapts the whole damn series. So some of the stuff (Namely a lot of the non-fight stuff) seems a bit rushed sometimes. I kinda wish they did it as a series of animated films instead. Or at least two live action films.

And that's really my only beef with the movie really. Does a shitty, bandwagon-jumper fanbase count as a gripe?

But I digress, Edgar Wright's got a winner here. I don't think it's his best film (That's Hot Fuzz), but it's a hell of a film. I'm giving it an 8/10.

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