This is only my second review of a film. My first was for Kick-ass and like my Kick-ass review the tales share similar elements...
My best friend (CBM's own TC) and I boarded a train heading upwards on the map, our destination you ask? The dreaded, poorly thought of and junkie filled city of Frankston. A town so deprived of moral sensibilities that towns worse then it make fun of it. It's not really that bad, but who wants to be different? So naturally I join in on the rumours and spread my own. But I digress. I met TC in the second carriage, he was tired after a night of shenanigans, we grunted at each other for I too was tired, due to having my heart ripped out by some she-devil but I'm getting a bit too Dr. Phil-ish, and these grunts were reciprocated by one another and I sat down. We sat their in silence fully expecting awesomeness to be with us in the next hour or so.
Arriving at the theatre we purchased our tickets, left and brought a belated breakfast, then re-entered the cinema and were ushered in by some 20-something who was wondering where life had gone wrong. It was truly a joyous occasion for all. The pre-movie quiz begun and we shouted out answers about Tarantino, Burton and even Emilio Estevez. If anyone had any illusions as to our nerdism they were soon reassured that we were in fact massive nerds. As the trailers begun we prayed that we didn't have to endure the Wall Street 2 trailer again, thankfully our prayers were answered though we did get one for Zac Efron but a worthy sacrifice to see the first session of Scott Pilgrim on its opening day.
And then it happened...
1 hour and 57 minutes of pure awesomeness.
This is how I can prove that it's awesome...the Universal logo at the start of the film was done arcade style with polyphonic music and a pixelated Earth. Nuff said.
I really don't want to wreck much more than that, I liked it better than the over hyped Inception. Inception was good and all but it was hardly groundbreaking, Scott Pilgrim on the other hand is groundbreaking in my opinion. Finally video games have been translated accurately to the big screen.
Now for all those like me who have read the source material I can proudly say that this adaptation is up there with Watchmen and Kick-ass. Certain things were changed, like things that don’t translate well from the page to the screen. But they are 100% forgivable. The time frame is a bit different but once again it's necessary. The ending, like Watchmen, differs in aspects but you can't get mad as when this film went into production the last volume hadn't been released. It's quite similar, though for a second or two I had thought they'd stuffed it up and I actually begun to panic as it would have wrecked what was otherwise a brilliant film.
As for the cast absolutely everybody delivers. Beforehand I feared that there had been miscasts, like Cera as Scott Pilgrim and Brie Larson as Envy. But these fears were quickly diminished. Cera was not his type-cast self but actually brought to the table what the character needed to be on film. Kieran Culkin is really, really good. He's funny and charming and plays his character so straight when lesser actors would have cracked. My crush on Mary Elizabeth Winstead has just grown, the images of her in her underwear have been burned into my brain and will hopefully stay there forever. And as for our CBM heroes Routh and Evans they are just fantastic and it's really fun seeing these big names in smaller roles.
When the movie finishes you really feel a sense of joy, you really do feel for these characters. And because it's such a faithful and awesome comic book movie you feel proud. You just want to get into the faces of movies like Batman Forever and Ghost Rider and scream 'That's how you do it!". If I hadn't been so tired and worn out I would have skipped out of the theatre doing fist pumps. So what I'm trying to say is go see it, because this is the type of CBM that needs our support. We want the studios to make them like this and not like Jonah Hex.
Go see it.
You will love it.
Visually (I think I forgot to mention that, the effects and transitions, and just everything is so bloody good) and comedically stunning.
Edgar Wright is a genius.
10/10 rating for this one just because I love both Wright and the series.
Cheers,
Benjamin Boekelaar :D