I'm very late to the party with this film. Sounds like an utterly ridiculous premise, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm something of a cinematic snob. Generally the films I watch are very serious. Whenever someone comes round to watch a film, I realise all I have on my computer is:
- pretentious foreign films
- pretentious, white-boy documentaries about urban activism
- pretentious mind-fuck films about psychology
- pretentious films by David Lynch
- films like "Human Centipede" and "Serbian Film"
- hilariously bad C-grade horror films
I'd totally baulk at a film where something that could never happen, like people having superpowers, happens. But I loved Scott Pilgrim. The idea is, as I'm sure the whole developed world knows, that in order to win the heart of the girl whom he is trying to woo in his virginal way, pussy, gamer and unremarkable bassist Michael Cera has to tick each of her seven exes off the list. Unfortunately, they've all got superpowers. Emotionally, I really responded well to the film, despite thinking the silly gimmick would put me off. The characters' relationship backstories create a compelling web, and the easy candour with which supposed "issues" such as homosexuality, casual sex, cradle-snatching and so forth are presented really gives the impression that the characters are real people and makes the film immensely relatable. If you watch this film, and are in any way whatsoever part of your local "scene" community, you'll recognise all the characters, from the virgins to the douchebags who spend half the day doing their hair to the "guy who knows everyone".
Coming from a similar background myself, and at the cusp of young adulthood, I was able to relate to things in the film such as casual sex, the intellectualisation of relationships, rooming with people, trying to get a job, annoying high-school girls who fancy you...
I found that those sections of the film where it was like a game were equally compelling. For these characters, you have to suspend disbelief, not just because of their superpowers but because of their social status - one of them was an actor and a skateboarder, for heaven's sake. But it was OK, because this forms a separate mode that the film goes into. Fight scenes, amusing origin stories for the superpowers, lots of effects to imitate the scoring system of arcade games and the tropes of RPG's. I do have a gripe with this, however. There were seven people to defeat, but when it got past the lesbian (number four), I started getting bored, realising each scene was pretty much the same. The storyboarders seem to agree, because they lump numbers five and six together and kind of gloss over them, before the denouement. Though they did well to introduce a different theme for each enemy - martial arts, extreme sports, veganism, musicianship ... - as it was, each actual fight scene could have been much more individually choreographed. For me, the stand-out elements of the film were the humanistic bits in between.
So all in all I found the film to be a good laugh, brilliant to watch with friends, but also at its core holding a mirror up to reality. If you're a gamer, scene kid, or anyone emerging from the dingier side of the adolescent social spectrum, it's fantastic.
"Scott Pilgrim" can be bought on DVD for the princely price of a tenner. As if!
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