At the Movies: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Updated on August 30, 2010 By Ken Begg 16 Comments

In a nutshell: It’s about the best movie ever made, at least while you’re watching it. After then it’s probably not quite as good as Kung Fu Hustle, although it’s close. Most fun I’ve had in a theater in years. Hurry and see it while it’s still on the big screen. It’s not doing well and won’t be out for long. Strongest recommendation, though.

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  • True indeed, Mr. Begg. If I were not poor, I would have seen it several more times. ‘Tis a very well made film.

    I shall back up your recommendation with my own: http://thesilvermirror.wordpress.com/2010/08/21/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world/

    I look forward to owning it on Blu-Ray.

  • Wayne

    I saw it for free with a friend a few weeks ago and LOVED it! We’re not even the target audience (we’re both in our 40s) but it still worked. Too bad it’s not doing well but this looks like it could be a cult movie and the best cult movies bombed in their inirial releases.

  • James — I agree! I actually found myself, while watching it, considering going back again this weekend. (Assuming it’s still out.) It’s probably not been since Kung Fu Hustle that I liked a (new) film enough to go see it twice in the theater.

  • Heli

    I enjoyed it, but Michael Cera just brought too much Michael Ceraness to it for my taste. I never felt like he was Scott Pilgrim; just that he was Michael Cera.

    My other issue is that I never saw the Scott/Ramona relationship. They were just together because they were together, and he was madly in love with her because he said he was.

    All that said, I thought it was very fun and would recommend it. I would even more highly recommend reading the original Scott Pilgrim comics, though.

  • Rock Baker

    Sorry, after my last trip to the theater I’m not going back until they phase out those digital projectors. Not only was the picture sub-par and too dark, the bottom half of the screen would flicker every 20 minutes or so. My brother Kyle has been to three or four digital screenings and has described a different problem for each showing. From now on, I’m sticking to the drive-in theater where they run actual film prints (and have cheap tickets and double features and such).

    That and I’d never heard of Scott Pilgrim until it was referenced in a post here, so I didn’t have a lot of motivation one way or the other. Maybe the drive-in will show it….

  • BeckoningChasm

    Anyone see Piranha 3-D?

  • Rock Baker

    I did. See my thoughts under the “The Stars Shine Bright…OPEN THREAD” post.

  • Thad

    I have to admit, I don’t understand why this movie did so poorly at the box office. The reviews are great, word of mouth seems decent… did the marketing campaign really drop the ball that badly?

  • BeckoningChasm

    Rock – thanks for the note. After reading your thoughts, and the thoughts of those responding to your thoughts, etc, I guess I’ve decided Piranha 3-D isn’t worth seeing. I hate camp, though I can tolerate it, but I really hate sadism.

  • Petoht

    It’s probably doing poorly because there’s a lot of people who don’t care to see a hipster flick that seems to be nothing more than rambling from one twee reference to the next.

    Now, I’m not saying that’s what Scott Pilgrim is, but that’s how it looks from the ads.

  • Wayne

    “Piranha 3-D” was sick, stupid, mysoginistic and didn’t miss a chance to thrust a woman’s breasts or behind into the camera. I know that female nudity is seemingly required in all R rated horror films but this one went too far. And the big attack scene was downright disgusting. It WAS sadistic and just rubbed the gore in the audience’s face…and all in 3-D! I think I’ll skip the sequel which is already in production.

  • i will argue that nudity is NOT required in a R-rated horror film. Only in the lame mainstream ones, whose erpetrators are unable or afraid to use fear or violence to attain their ends. Look at Texas Chainsaw Massacre – nary a booby is seen.

  • Reed

    I saw this at the theater, and I totally agree with Heli. While I generally had a good time and laughed where I was supposed to laugh I found the actual character of Scott Pilgrim to be lame and the central romance totally unmotivated. I have not read the comics, but would it really have done so much damage to upgrade the character from “totally devoid of positive qualities” to “average guy in a totally outrageous situation”?

    I know, I know, geek wish fulfillment of the most blatant sort.

    I also thought that the tone of the movie was oddly early 90’s. It reminded me of a lot of Gen X type stuff. Are the early 90’s cool again? I know that the local radio station is playing Pearl Jam and Nirvana a lot.

  • Wait wait wait– Piranha 3D, a movie that (SPOILER) features Jerry O’Connell’s penis being eaten off by fish, then REGURGITATED INTO THE CAMERA, is “misogynistic”? Why, because female parts are actually fish food as well? Hmmm, I gotta remember that…

    …Also wild horses couldn’t drag me to see ANYTHING Michael Cera is in, EVER AGAIN. Sorry. That guy has pouted his way through more movies than I can humanly endure.

  • Elizabeth

    Matty, it was misogynist in the way most things in mass culture are. Misogyny is just sort of generally diffused through our cultural products, as a mix of objectification and dreary contempt, with just a hint of fear.

    In other words, it’s the sort of misogyny that doesn’t even bother me anymore because it’s so pervasive. I’d never be able to watch anything if it did. It helps that, while I like breasts as well as the next person, I don’t find them terribly compelling when displayed at random. It’s just like “Oh. There’s some breasts.”

    What I saw more of was good old-fashioned prudery and class resentment, on which so many of our trashiest horror films are based. Conspicuous consumption and sexual licentiousness have always justified horrible, gory deaths. Since almost everybody was having sex, drinking, or doing drugs, they were fair game by Voorhees family rules. So that doesn’t bother me, either.

    Anyway, I was kind of disappointed that those four kids survived, but maybe the piranhas will eat through their boat in the sequel. Other than that, I think they got it more or less right, with the one brutal punch of gore to the face.

  • Rock Baker

    I liked My Bloody Valentine 3D much better, but then it actually tried to make a better-than-average movie out of itself. It took a campy idea, then rose above the expectations one would normally have for something like that (as did the original, one of the frightfully small number of ‘good’ slasher flicks). Piranha 3D was like a (bad) comic book that threw everything at you it could just BECAUSE it could. Granted, it made no illusions of being anything other than a stupid movie, so one can’t really complain on those grounds. I think we were supposed to expect 3D blood-squirts and naked breasts (which I could’ve lived with if that’d been the extent they took it to), but the 3D vomit and crass atitude toward human life (even by movie standards) just took it out of the Fun category and over into Trash. And then there’s that 3D penis again! Honestly, who wants to see that? For what its worth, it did feature a couple of little children who were probably the most likable of their sort I’ve seen in a horror movie in ages.