(no subject)
I saw Scott Pilgrim at a midnight showing!! It was indeed an epic of epic epicness. I have a few thoughts--feel free to discuss with me!
I have no problem with the branching off of the plot from the comic book. They take the first two comics pretty much as storyboards--and it's done very well. After that, they branch off, but the spirit of the thing is still there, and I didn't really thing the comic book ending made much sense anyway.
Great effects--lots of great KAPOW shots, in-jokes, gamer music, etc. Totally amusing the whole way through.
I feel like the movie misses something, and that's heart. We have trouble believing in the main love story, which is pretty important, since the whole movie is a fight to win Ramona Flowers. But I don't feel it. I pin the blame a lot on direction and the girl who plays Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).
She plays it like Ramona doesn't love Scott--which I think is the right interpretation, especially for the movie version of this. But the only problem is that Scott needs to be desperately, immediately in love with her, and that means the audience need to be in love with her. She needs to be captivating and mysterious. It needs to be like Zooey Dechanel in 500 Days of Summer. Her job was to walk into an elevator, say she loved the Smiths, walk out, and have the whole audience immediately in love with her. She succeeds. Mary-Elizabeth Winstead does not succeed at the same task. And the early minutes of the film don't help her out much.
The two people who steal the movie are Kieran Culkin as Wallace and Ellen Wong as Knives Chau. Ellen Wong does such a good job that you actually find yourself shipping Knives/Scott in the movie--which can't happen. She needs to be heartbreaking collateral damage.
They could have aimed for a PG-13 rating instead of a PG and sexed up the movie a little, as well. I'm just sayin'.
Lastly, I have to make a comment about beautiful Toronto and how it was featured in the film, and to that I say: NOT GOOD ENOUGH. The comics were a love-letter to Toronto, and that could have been done even better in film form with, you know, actual shots of Toronto. But although they had the requisite Casa Loma scene and everyone went to Second Cup and Pizza Pizza, the movie didn't love Toronto and it should have. Every time they walked down the street, you saw that same corner of Bloor St. just west of Dufferin--it was obvious that they did a whole day shooting there and just walked their actors past it for every shot. I don't know, I wish the movie could have showcased the city like the comics did.
Anyway, I'm glad I went to a midnight showing, because I was sure to get a nice nerd audience. They were great from the previews up. They cheered the preview for "Score: a Hockey Musical" (who wouldn't?). And then the boos that the next Shymalan movie preview got were music to my ears. The second his name popped up on the screen, no-one hid their disgust. Loved it.
Anyway, Scott Pilgrim gets three stars out of four.
I have no problem with the branching off of the plot from the comic book. They take the first two comics pretty much as storyboards--and it's done very well. After that, they branch off, but the spirit of the thing is still there, and I didn't really thing the comic book ending made much sense anyway.
Great effects--lots of great KAPOW shots, in-jokes, gamer music, etc. Totally amusing the whole way through.
I feel like the movie misses something, and that's heart. We have trouble believing in the main love story, which is pretty important, since the whole movie is a fight to win Ramona Flowers. But I don't feel it. I pin the blame a lot on direction and the girl who plays Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).
She plays it like Ramona doesn't love Scott--which I think is the right interpretation, especially for the movie version of this. But the only problem is that Scott needs to be desperately, immediately in love with her, and that means the audience need to be in love with her. She needs to be captivating and mysterious. It needs to be like Zooey Dechanel in 500 Days of Summer. Her job was to walk into an elevator, say she loved the Smiths, walk out, and have the whole audience immediately in love with her. She succeeds. Mary-Elizabeth Winstead does not succeed at the same task. And the early minutes of the film don't help her out much.
The two people who steal the movie are Kieran Culkin as Wallace and Ellen Wong as Knives Chau. Ellen Wong does such a good job that you actually find yourself shipping Knives/Scott in the movie--which can't happen. She needs to be heartbreaking collateral damage.
They could have aimed for a PG-13 rating instead of a PG and sexed up the movie a little, as well. I'm just sayin'.
Lastly, I have to make a comment about beautiful Toronto and how it was featured in the film, and to that I say: NOT GOOD ENOUGH. The comics were a love-letter to Toronto, and that could have been done even better in film form with, you know, actual shots of Toronto. But although they had the requisite Casa Loma scene and everyone went to Second Cup and Pizza Pizza, the movie didn't love Toronto and it should have. Every time they walked down the street, you saw that same corner of Bloor St. just west of Dufferin--it was obvious that they did a whole day shooting there and just walked their actors past it for every shot. I don't know, I wish the movie could have showcased the city like the comics did.
Anyway, I'm glad I went to a midnight showing, because I was sure to get a nice nerd audience. They were great from the previews up. They cheered the preview for "Score: a Hockey Musical" (who wouldn't?). And then the boos that the next Shymalan movie preview got were music to my ears. The second his name popped up on the screen, no-one hid their disgust. Loved it.
Anyway, Scott Pilgrim gets three stars out of four.