DVD Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was one of those films where my wife and I toyed with the idea of heading to the theater. The commercials didn't make it sound all that interesting, yet we both loved the integrated videogame effects and references. After all, I am a total video game nerd. In the end, we never got around to going, and after recently watching the DVD, I'm glad we didn't. My wife liked the movie way more than I did, but she still agreed it really wasn't worth theater prices.
The movie is about a 22 year old dude named Scott Pilgrim. Scott is the bass player in a garage band called Sex Bob-omb (Bob-omb is a videogame reference to those walking bomb enemies in the Super Mario games), and he also happens to be dating a 17 year old high school student named Knives. He gets a lot of flack for it from his friends and bandmates, but he's happy so he doesn't really care.
This all changes when Scott meets a mysterious American girl named Ramona Flowers who is a delivery person for Amazon.ca. Does Amazon.ca really have their own delivery people? They don't use UPS or FedEx or Canadian Post Office like everyone else? Anyway, so he falls in love with her and eventually they start dating. Then, during a battle-of-the-bands competition, Ramona's first ex-boyfriend attacks Scott, and the two battle.
This battle was visually interesting as it was played out in classic videogame style with exaggerated strikes, impossible physics, and complete with sound effects. It even went so far as turning the defeated bad guy into a bunch of coins. I've never seen anything like it in a movie before, and that was cool. What I wasn't feeling was the motivation behind the attack. The guy seemed to come out of nowhere for no reason.
The movie continues with Scott needing to battle all of Ramona's other exes, with the battles getting more difficult each time. Between the battles, this is really just a romance love story, with Scott and Ramona hanging out, being in love, and of course the inevitable split, whether it be temporary or permanent. I found those parts pretty dull, and kept wishing they would just on with the next battle. But even the uniqueness of the battles eventually wore off for me.
Still, I did enjoy the style of the movie. Like if someone made a comment about his hair then as soon as the camera cut back to him he would instantly have a hat on. Or how one of the bad guys could "clone" himself using stunt doubles. And I loved all of the videogame references, of which there were too many to count. This movie definitely very unique stylistically, and I think is worth checking out just for that.
Bonus features on the DVD include a bunch of deleted scenes, a bloopers reel, four seperate feature length commentaries, and a trivia track which uses subtitles to display various trivia information throughout the film. I haven't listened to all the commentary tracks yet, but I have to say that so far the triva subtitles are the coolest of the extra features. For me, it defininitely enhanced my enjoyment of the movie. Still not a movie I would buy, but I do think it's worth at least renting.