REVIEW: Sexless Geek Isn't as Heroic, Romantic as Scott Pilgrim Thinks
That's a lot of exes to get through -- they include Chris Evans as a skateboard-punk movie star and Jason Schwartzman as a megalomaniacal music producer -- and Scott Pilgrim begins groaning under its own fey weight even before our hero can start slapping them down. Scott Pilgrim is based on the graphic novels of Bryan Lee O'Malley (Wright and Michael Bacall adapted them for the screen), and Wright cranks up the story's cartoonishness to insufferable levels. As skinny Scott does battle with these aggressive dudes, exclamatory remarks (Krak! Pow!) explode across the screen in Batman-style cartoon lettering. At times the action intentionally mimics the choppiness of old-school video games. Wright uses so many split-screen effects that we may as well be peering at the movie through a schizophrenic stereopticon.
Wright has made some entertaining pictures, including the 2007 cop comedy Hot Fuzz, not to mention the brilliant faux-trailer (Don't) he fashioned for the glorious Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez twofer Grindhouse. And his 2004 Shaun of the Dead has legions of rabid, zombie-like fans (though I confess Wright's wobbly control of the movie's tone left me with some reservations). But with Scott Pilgrim, Wright leaps over the line from chattery cleverness to all-out self-consciousness. Everything -- from Scott's nerdy headgear, to the way he responds only passively to the way his gay roommate (played by Kieran Culkin) continually needles him, to the way Scott's life is so aimless and drifty that he sometimes can't tell what's real and what's imaginary -- is presented with a wink or a nudge, to make sure we get the so-called irony. The movie is one big exaggerated shrug, albeit one with special effects (like the sparkly twin dragons that emerge from the keyboards of two of Ramona's exes, twin Japanese rock stars played by real-life twins Keita and Shota Saito).
Scott Pilgrim assaults us with novelty, and it's wearying. Winstead is lovely, and she looks great in an array of out-there hair colors. (Ramona is a woman who clearly feels that peacocks shouldn't have all the fun, and her fringey locks segue from fuchsia to blue to green during the course of the story.) But even for a misunderstood, tough-cookie punk moll, she's a bit too blank -- her mysterious, matte-pink Mona Lisa smile is just too enigmatic.
Yet she's a complete livewire next to Cera. I used to worry about Cera as an actor: He seemed like a talented kid in danger of being limited by his own acute boyishness. And I still think that maybe -- maybe -- smart filmmakers will figure out ways to bring out the best in him. But in Scott Pilgrim his wispy smile and quivery voice aren't endearing; they're an affront. In every frame, Scott appears to be begging us not just to love him (which would be bad enough), but to pity him.
I'm willing to suspend disbelief enough to believe that Cera's capable of playing a character with a sex drive. In fact, Juno handled that aspect of his character astutely: We never saw him trying to get the girl; we simply knew that he had, and that fact alone suggested that maybe this sweet, gawky kid was really quite something in the sack. Sex is, after all, one of life's great mysteries.
But Cera plays Scott Pilgrim as the kind of guy who thinks that getting an erection is an insult to a girl, damning evidence that he doesn't just, as we used to say in the '70s, "love her for her mind." Men and women alike have plenty of sexual anxieties. But just as men -- the good ones -- will sometimes tell us women that we don't need to be Victoria's Secret models to be sexy, men should know that they don't have to be Bruce Springsteen -- or even, heaven forfend, Mick Jagger -- for us to find them irresistible. But they do have to look as if they might possibly be interested in having sex, and that's a bridge too far for Cera in Scott Pilgrim. So what if he passes the Herculean he-man test the story puts him through? He still has all the sexual charisma of an untied shoelace. And even a woman who likes the soft touch can't do much with that.
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Comments
Just wondering if the critic read the books before watching the movie....
I lol'd...
...but who is "she"?
She's a movie critic. It's not necessary to read the book to enjoy the movie.
Cool story, bro.
"IS it really that DRASTIC of a conclusion?"
Because it's wrong, yes.
"If she's trashing two films that were otherwise well received for inventiveness alone, is that far-fetched?"
Scott Pilgram was barely well-recieved. And then look at that tiny little number: 2.
"since you have such a RAGING HARD-ON for defending this troglodyte why don't you cite some examples that show otherwise? kthxbai"
Would you suggest that Hellboy, Jonah Hex, or pretty much every other Micheal Cera movie + Adventureland, or her Speed Racer review (which referred to the Matrix as "dazzling sci-fi entertainment"), or Serenity...all aimed at twentysomething fanboys.
You fail. Nice try though.
Cool Story, bro.
They didn't ask if it was necessary. They asked if they did read the book. Could be a genuine question for some people.
It may be genuine but how is it relevant?
I gather the impression that this review is less a consideration of the film as it is the sort of man that Zacharek doesn't want to date. Thank you for sharing your relationship woes with us, but I'd prefer more about the movie I came here to read about.
I hate Michael Cera, I think the Scott Pilgrim books are shittily drawn, and I'm one of the millions of Americans who never once thought about seeing this movie this weekend. The end.
Hmm considering you liked Jonah Hex and didn't like Inception or this movie, that's pretty much all the info i need to write off your opinion completely. I mean yeah you're entitled to it. But it's wrong.
And Trace do you really need to respond to every goddamn comment on here? You need to insert your head just a liiiittle farther up her ass.
Hmm considering you liked Jonah Hex and didn't like Inception or this movie, that's pretty much all the info i need to write off your opinion completely. I mean yeah you're entitled to it. But it's wrong.
And Trace do you really need to respond to every goddamn comment on here? You need to insert your head just a liiiittle farther up her ass.
"Hmm considering you liked Jonah Hex and didn't like Inception or this movie, that's pretty much all the info i need to write off your opinion completely. "
Have you actually SEEN Jonah Hex, or are just one of the millions of mindless sheep who wrote it off based on how well it scored with other critics?
"I mean yeah you're entitled to it. But it's wrong."
There's no right and wrong opinion.
"And Trace do you really need to respond to every goddamn comment on here? You need to insert your head just a liiiittle farther up her ass."
...said the guy who said opinions are wrong.
By the way, I don't respond to every comment. Use your eyes to see.
Yeah i did see Jonah Hex. And i saw Inception. And i saw Scott Pilgrim.
Jonah Hex was embarrassing, a run of the mill Hollywood mess in which they take fantastic source material and instead of following any of it, throw it out the window and create garbage for dudes what like when stuff go boom. Scott Pilgrim on the other hand was a director taking fantastic source material and adapting it for the screen being as faithful as he could and changing things that needed to be changed for the transition.
As for my opinions remark i was being facetious. Obviously a persons opinion can't be wrong. And i was generalizing when saying you respond to EVERY comment. I assumed you'd be able to pick up on that but apparently you need it spelled out for you cause you take everything you read on the Internets for serious. Let me try again.
Stephanie is entitled to her opinion. As horrible and tasteless as it might be. It isn't wrong. It's just unfortunate.
You felt the need to respond to A LOT of comments. But not every one. Kudos on your "restraint".
Better?
That "his own feelings of uncertainty are all that matter" was kind of the whole point. It wasn't laying it out like that was something to be aspired to, that was the central character flaw he was trying to overcome.
I do agree that it was a little too sexless, but that he thought he needed to pretend to not to be interested in sex was just another manifestation of him being an immature dude. I feel like you're making a bunch of the same critiques the movie was.
I'm not 100% into video games and I without a doubt loved this movie. The style and feel and the oomph of this movie just made everything for me. It also helped with the fantastic visual eye candy going for it. Though? I'm not into gaming culture, it was still so much fun to watch and I got into it and loved every minute of it. I would whole heartedly recommend Scott Pilgrim.
This movie targets a specific demographic, and there's nothing wrong with that. People like it, people don't. Reviews like this are pointless. People who read columnists like this just want to have their mind made up for them.
No, it's not for a specific demographic. You'd know this if you saw it. It's just an amazing piece of art.
Then how come the movie consists only of indie-rock nerds?
Just because a movie's subject is a certain demographic, that doesn't mean that people outside that demographic aren't going to enjoy it. I took my 58-year-old mother to see Scott Pilgrim, and she absolutely loved it. Couldn't stop laughing the entire time.
By the way, didn't you say up there that there is no such thing as a wrong opinion? Stop proving yourself a hypocrite and a troll.
"Just because a movie's subject is a certain demographic, that doesn't mean that people outside that demographic aren't going to enjoy it."
I didn't say that. However, it would be foolish to think that there isn't a target market for this movie or any other movie.
"By the way, didn't you say up there that there is no such thing as a wrong opinion? Stop proving yourself a hypocrite and a troll."
That indie-rock nerds are the target market for this movie is no mere opinion. And anyways, I'm not proving myself a hypocrite. Learn to read.
While I agree that it should not be always necessary to read a book on which a reviewed movie is based, in this case it is relevant as much of the review calls out the direction of the film to be at "fault". Honestly, line for line and scene for scene, this is the closest film adaptation to the source material I have ever seen. Almost 100% of the lines, camera angles, "Batman cartoon bubbles", and pop culture references and jokes, are rendered perfectly from the books. Even the music is given chords and lyrics in the books that were lifted to serenade the big screen.
While some may question the decision to direct this movie, one still has to admit the absolutely amazing attention to detail taken to preserve the original graphic novels in movie format. Hopefully more adaptations can take a page from this direction, noting that a movie doesn't have to change quite so much to adapt to another medium.
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