"Wright’s qualified triumph — to worried fans of the comic, at least — is that he has found the movie equivalent of the source’s sardonic pen-and-ink fizz." -Burr
"So he's [Edgar Wright] just the gent to take on a love story that's also a martial-arts showdown: in order to win Ramona's hand, Scott must do battle, video-game style, with her seven evil exes." -Corliss
Seperate elements & their relationship to the whole: "Locations feature pop-up “fun facts,” sounds come with illustrative words (“ding dong!”), a smooch triggers pink hearts. And that’s before the 22-year-old slacker-guitarist Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) becomes a ker-powing superman above the stages of Toronto’s rock clubs."
-Edelstein
"Where the graphic novel was an inspired riff on the cliches of martial arts comics, Wright builds his film on the patchy narrative leaps of video games and their surrounding cargo culture. For all intents and purposes, “Scott Pilgrim’’ is a video game ... but one that keeps rebooting itself with satiric nonchalance." -Burr
"Since so many action movies play out kids' video-game fantasies of blowing stuff up, and since guy comedies trade largely in school-yard taunts and boys'-room giggles, then Scott Pilgrim is the perfect summation of Hollywood at this moment — an apotheosis of American male infantilism — and, on its own, a most likable mess." -Corliss
Objective evaluation of the film: "Nothing, by the way, explains his sudden surge of superheroism: no gamma rays or mutant spider bites. The rest of the time, pathetic Scott shares a mattress in a crummy dive with his gay friend (Kieran Culkin) and dates (i.e., almost holds hands with) a high-school girl named Knives Chau (the touchingly buoyant Ellen Wong)—until he glimpses the magenta-haired deadpan punk Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and, pursuing her, finds himself under siege by a string of jealous exes (seven, to be precise), usually while his band is playing." -Edelstein
"The hero’s latest crush, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), is an Amazon.ca delivery girl with a knowledge of time-space wormholes and a past that includes seven evil ex-boyfriends, all of whom intend to dispatch Scott for his effrontery." -Burr
"A Toronto layabout who plays in the not-so-hot rock band Sex Bob-omb, Scott shares a bed but nothing more with his gay roommate Wallace (Kieran Culkin); has an intensely platonic relationship with a high school girl, Knives Chau (Ellen Wong); and on the night he finds true love with dream girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), spends it with her but doesn't have sex." -Corliss
Subjective evaluation of the film: "The film is repetitive, top-heavy: Wright blows his wad too early"
-Edelstein
"After a while you start yearning for something, anything, substantial on which to hang your interest. It ain’t happening, and when “Scott Pilgrim’’ comes down from its all-night Red Bull buzz, you’re left with surprisingly little to take home." -Burr
"If you're a fan of narrative integrity, stay away. The first half of the movie is an acutely observed character comedy, as we meet the women in Scott's life: Knives; Ramona; the band's drummer, Kim (Alison Pill); and Scott's sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick), all of whom are worthier humans than he." -Corliss
The film's level of ambition: "His other movies are movie-ish, but they work from the inside out: The Romero-like zombie plague of Shaun of the Dead is a horrific extension of provincial middle-class English complacency, of a world Wright knows intimately.Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is an outside-in kind of exercise. It’s ravishing, but the emotional stakes never seem very high." -Edelstein
"‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’’ may be as close as the movies will ever get to seeing the world through the eyes of an over-caffeinated 23-year-old man-boy playing retro video games on a handheld and listening to a jangle-core iPod playlist while waiting for his girlfriend in an all-night diner in a largish North American city." -Burr
"This section can get wearying if you're not Scott's emotional age. But Wright leaves a residue of sweetness from the first part, in which the perpetually immature Scott has to choose among all those fabulous women. That's what makes Scott Pilgrim a fizzy, defiantly schizophrenic semidelight." -Corliss
Words you found interesting: "top-heavy", "disjunction", "sudden surge of superheroism" -Edelstein
"Casiotone heaven", "sardonic pen-and-ink fizz", "absurdly charming mash-up of slacker irony and manga mayhem" -Burr
"residue of sweetness", "defiantly schizophrenic semidelight", "acutely observed character comedy" -Corliss
Relationships to film movements/genres/relation to other filmmaker's work: "Cera doesn’t come alive in the fight scenes the way Stephen Chow does in the best (and most Tashlin-like) of all the surreal martial-arts comedies, Kung Fu Hustle. And Wright doesn’t have what Tashlin had in Bob Hope in Son of Paleface—a meta-comedian who could comment on the sundry absurdities." -Edelstein
"Oddly, the movie I kept thinking of was “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension,’’ the 1984 cult film in which just as much happens and just as outrageously with just as little effect. The difference is that “Buckaroo Banzai’’ didn’t see itself as a generational statement of purpose, or lack thereof." -Burr
"Then the fights begin, people sprout superhero powers at whim, and comic-book visual effects — lightning bolts, heart-shaped kisses, whooshes and thuds — accompany the action as in the old Batman TV show." -Corliss
Cited Sources
- Edelstein, David. "A Not So Super Hero" Rev. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, dir. Edgar Wright Refn. New York Magazine 1 Aug. 2010
- Burr, Ty. "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" Rev. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, dir. Edgar Wright Refn. The Boston Globe 13 Aug. 2010
- Corliss, Richard. "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: A Fizzy Double Feature" Rev. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, dir. Edgar Wright Refn. TIME Magazine 23 Aug. 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment