As a comics fan, I have been peripherally aware of Bryan O'Malley's "Scott Pilgrim" series of black and white indie books for several years now. My first real exposure to the content inside, though, was the first trailer for the movie adaptation that came out this summer. It featured a slew of video game references and big-ass fights with super cool graphics, and a quirky tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. I loved it immediately... which is exactly what a trailer is supposed to do.
Having a 3-year old curtails one's movie-going, and spending my summer writing and directing "Race McCloud" didn't leave too much time for the cinema, either. So I didn't catch "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" in theaters this summer. I did, however, begin to catch myself up to the comics, in anticipation for seeing the films. I liked them. Not loved them, or hated them: liked them. It had all the hipster-cool retro-gaming references I expected and craved (Sex Bob-Omb, enemies that burst into coins, power-ups), but the narrative was a little rambling and disconnected. I'm not entirely sure what the last half of that last sentence means, which is perfect, as I'm not entirely sure what about the "Scott Pilgrim" comics series didn't click for me. Whatever it was, though, I read the first three volumes of the series and didn't feel any pressing desire to read the last three. Perhaps someday I will, but maybe I won't.
But I was still pretty amped up to see the movie, which I finally did the other night as an iTunes rental. Before I get into my thoughts on the film, there's some numbers I want to throw at you: after a huge marketing blitz, "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" made only $31,524,275, after having been made with a budget of some $60 million. Will it recoup after international and DVD money comes rolling in? Yeah, probably. But only making back about half of its budget labels the movie as a big box office stinker, despite largely positive reviews (it garnered an 81% "Fresh" rating on the Tomatometer over at RottenTomatoes.com). But what does the $31 million total above mean? Well, at the average 2010 movie ticket price of $7.95, it means that roughly 3,965,317 Americans paid money to go see "Scott Pilgrim" in the movie theater. Flop-a-roo. Compare that number, though, to the number Oni Press, the publisher of the "Scott Pilgrim" comic book series, just announced: there are now 1 million total copies of "Scott Pilgrim" comics in print. Not sold. In print. This achievement, simply printing 1 million copies regardless of actual sales, is being hailed in comics circles as a massive victory for the publisher and for the title.
What does all mean? It means that a darling indie comic (that sells well by indie comic standards) does not necessarily a hit mainstream movie make. But we already knew that.
"Scott Pilgrim" is the story of Scott's (Michael Cera's) journey (he's a pilgrim, get it?) from man-child to man-ish type person. It's not really a coming-of-age story as much as it is a time-to-grow-up story, and even that is secondary to the film's aesthetic and central conceit: in order for Scott to win the girl he loves, the mysterious Ramona Flowers (Mary-Elizabeth Winstead), he must defeat her "League of Evil Exes" one-by-one in a series of epic battles. All of that is well and good, and moviegoers do love them some fightin', that's for sure. But I'm not at all surprised that "Scott Pilgrim" fell well short of its financial expectations. The appeal of the film lies heavily in its audience's love for and knowledge of old-school video games. Scott and his friends live in a world where people flash red when they're about to die, where they explode into coins when defeated, where characters "level-up" in the middle of combat, where warping through subspace to get to Point A from Point B is commonplace...
One of two things probably happened when you read that last bit above: you shouted "AWESOME!" in recognition, or you said "What the hell... ?" The "Scott Pilgrim" team was banking on more than 31 million dollars-worth of people yelling "AWESOME!", and I'm not sure that was ever a logical expectation. I think all of the above is indeed awesome, but I grew up overdosing on Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, Double Dragon, and Battletoads. I recognized and adored the visual and audio nods to that existence that Edgar Wright peppered his film with, but I don't think enough members of the mainstream audience do. I know video games are a massive, massive industry right now, but that industry of modern video games more often than not attempts to simulate a reasonable facsimile of our reality, whereas the old-school games of the 80's and early 90's created their own reality and their own set of universal rules. It is that reality in which Scott Pilgrim and his friends live, and if you're an audience whose mindset isn't along for the ride you may be wondering why no character ever says, "Hey, did anyone notice Scott leaping into the air and beating up his girlfriend's ex in an extravagant light show display?", or, "So that dude totally exploded into coins. WTF?" Best example: do you know what a "1UP" is without me having to explain it to you? If not, then you will have no idea what's happening at the end of this movie.
Make no mistake, though: this is a massively well-crafted film, and Edgar Wright is a flat-out directing star. But truth be told, even though I was of the "THIS IS AWESOME!" crowd and I was along for the aesthetic ride, much like the comics I "liked" the film, not "loved" it. Why? Two problems, really: the plot is compressed from six volumes of comics and feels that way, despite winning performances almost all the way around. To keep this review in line with the film's 80's gaming references... I almost felt as if the "story" part of this story, the part that involved characters actually speaking to each other, was being told in rapid-fire "Ninja Gaiden"-style cut scenes. When you have to squeeze 6 or 7 boss battles into an under two-hour movie, though, I do understand that something's not going to make the cut.
But those boss battles were, in some way, part of the problem: I never felt the fighting was a metaphor for anything greater. Maybe I missed the point, but I thought the awesome fights were just that: awesome fights. And that's probably enough, frankly. But Scott's enemies don't blow up into coins for any particular narrative reason, they blow up into coins because that's what bad guys in video games do.
The biggest misfire in the movie for me, however, was Scott Pilgrim himself. Scott in the comics comes across as insecure slacker-cool; Michael Cera comes across more as insecure hipster-dweeb. What's the difference? Nothing and everything. I felt like I did watching Tobey Maguire in "Spider-Man": that this guy should totally work in this part, but doesn't. To be clear, I don't feel that Cera did anything wrong or gave a bad performance. I feel as if he were miscast. It's a shame, too, because the rest of the casting was spot on: Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers, Alison Pill as Kim Pine... all were perfect, as were the entire League of Evil Exes.
So was this film a failure or a success? Depends on who you ask, I suppose. There's enough visual eye-candy and quirky fun here for me to purchase it and watch it again, and I'm certainly very interested in watching a director's commentary, something I haven't said in a long time. Let me make this clear: I really, really enjoyed "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World". I can just totally understand why a lot of other people might not.
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