Scott Pilgrim

I had seen the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs The World a long time ago - sometime in August I guess. (Here it is.) I was very intrigued and knew that this kind of movie is a hit or a miss (for me). It reminded me of "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny", which starts of brilliantly and just gets weird.

I found out that Scott Pilgrim (the movie) was based on a graphic novel. But the trailer seems to suggest it is based on a video game from the 90s. Most of the reviews that praised this movie also seemed to be baffled by it. And the movie did not fare well at the box office. So when I sat down to watch this movie, I was prepared for a "different" kind of a movie.

And I still had all those "what just happened?" and "how the hell did the director get away with this" moments.

From the trailer, you pretty much know that there are going to be video-game (think Mortal Kombat) style fight sequences. But in fact, those sequences are where I got bored. They seem fun in the beginning of the movie, but later on get a little tiring. What I found fun was how he used all those video-game / graphic novel techniques in the normal scenes.

Some shots pretty much shout out "I used the graphic novel as a storyboard" in the style of '300', 'Sin City' or 'Watchmen'. There is a shot with Scott Pilgrim sitting alone on a swing, as seen from above, with his shadow filling up the rest of the frame. Then there is a shot where we can seen the passageway in the house and a timid Scott peeps into the frame, only his head visible.

It's a really baffling movie, and I really don't know what to make of it. I'm glad I watched it and I'm sure not everyone will like it. The jokes are really good. The movie felt packed with them and I might need another viewing to get the subtler ones. The movie is packed with visual gags that drive the dialogue based jokes. This movie might be an excellent example of how an overdose of CGI and carefully crafted special effects mimicking cartoons and comics can make a movie better.