*****
All summer long I had set it upon myself to truly consider a broad spectrum of films for my list of Top 15 movies ever. At one point I started with a hundred films, and eventually worked my way down to 15. Scott Pilgrim VS the World by Edgar Wright was perhaps the dark horse of the lot.
From the trailers I wasn’t the least bit interested in this film. It was by force from an old friend that I went to see it in theaters. As I paid for my ticket all I could think was “what a waste of money”. I sat through the film, laughed a couple of times, and in the end thought nothing of it. Of course it wasn’t as bad as I thought, but the film did nothing for me. I simply pretended to have liked it as much as my friend did, this having been an unfortunate trait of mine before knowing anything worth knowing about film. Around the people I liked I agreed to like a certain film even if I hadn’t liked it one bit. I’m thrilled to say that has changed.
Back to Scott, I saw it again later, though I can’t exactly remember where. The second time was even worse. I thought “how the hell am I watching this piece of crap again?” I don’t think I laughed at anything the second time.
Earlier this summer when I began to collect names of films that had left an impression on me Scott Pilgrim VS the World didn’t even come. It wasn’t until they showed it on HBO in mid-June that Scott Pilgrim began to make an impression on me. The first two times I saw the film were before university. Back then I had no useful knowledge of film. I had seen many films, but that didn’t mean anything.
This summer I wasn’t only more knowledgeable, but I was also fresh off my first class in film theory. That class, as my closest friends know, was Chinese Auteurs. No other class has ever influenced as much as Chinese Auteurs. In a way it redefined everything I knew about film, and radically altered my taste in film. In the end, the third time I watched Scott Pilgrim VS the World was a completely different experience.
After seeing plenty of other times, as HBO never tires of playing the same movies over and over again, I had come to understand Scott Pilgrim. Maybe not so much as understand that word has no meaning in film analysis, but now I really appreciated the style of Scott Pilgrim.
Scott Pilgrim could be said is all over the place. There is nothing quite like it. While the film is based on a series of graphic novels, it feels like it’s based more on a video game than anything. Well the film plays like a video game, and that perhaps makes it most unique. Unique because films based on video games try too hard to play like movies and always fall short. Scott Pilgrim is unapologetic about its style. The real world becomes a video game as Scott Pilgrim (played by Cera) must defeat Ramona’s (Winstead) seven evil exes if he is to date her. Each ex becomes harder as he goes, much like any video game where one must defeat the boss of every stage. To make things even better, every time he defeats an evil ex, they disappear into thin air leaving only coins behind and no makes nothing of it. Scott actually picks them up after defeating the first evil ex, and complains there isn’t even enough for a bus ride.
Aside from the video game world of the film, one of my favorite things is the editing. Editing has sadly become rather boring in most films. Here Edgar Wright uses editing to make the film quickly paced and funny along the way. A cut can transport us to a completely unexpected place like a desert with a cactus on the background, a place unusual for the rest of the narrative, yet funny for its randomness. One of my favorite edits comes in the form of a reaction shot when Knives wonders how Scott knows her idol Envy Adams. When it’s revealed to her that Scott dated Envy, Knives’ face becomes the emoticon for surprised or as I’d like to think of it, OMG.
Much like Howl’s Moving Castle, Scott Pilgrim VS the World also reminds me of my childhood. It’s not quite like Howl’s Moving Castle, but as a kid I was a huge fan of fighting sequences in movies. Naturally the outrageous and brilliantly executed fighting sequences in Scott Pilgrim VS the World take me back to the days when I used to imagine such things. By far the coolest fighting sequence is between Ramona Flowers and her ex Roxy involving a metal razor whip and a giant hammer.
Personally I think there is nothing quite like Scott Pilgrim VS the World in terms of style. While some may contest that there are films like Sucker Punch which follow the same pattern I would like to argue that Scott Pilgrim VS the World unlike Sucker Punch is cohesive. Both are all over the place, but Scott Pilgrim VS the World follows a singular pattern throughout where Sucker Punch can feel like brain fart at times. Overall Scott Pilgrim VS the World is a unique experience that will make you laugh and laugh while blending a fast pace editing with stylized fights, and great music. Scott Pilgrim VS the World makes its way into my list of Top 15 Films at number 11 and along with Howl’s Moving Castle ends up being one of the happier fares in my list.
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