Robin’s Rapid Reviews- Scott Pilgrim Vs. Criticism

Before I start- I won't be at SCBWI NYC today, but I will be at the "kid lit" party. So if any of you are nearby and want to meet me for some reason, that'd be the time.

So here’s the premise in a nutshell: twenty something loser Scott Pilgrim was devastated a year ago when he was brutally dumped by his girlfriend Natalie (“Envy”) when she signed on to become a big rock star. He’s finally pulling himself together thanks to the help of his dangerously underage (17) girlfriend Knives Chau when the girl of his dreams shows up. Literally the girl of his dreams. She travels through his brain as a shortcut in her job delivering packages for Amazon.ca like something out of Dresden Codak . Despite being a huge loser, Scott manages to attract Ramona, the mysterious American dream traveler, but finds she comes saddled with an unusual bit of baggage. A league of 7 evil exes Scott will have to defeat in order to secure a relationship. Oh, and just so’s you know, it’s the sort of story where things are ostensibly realistic 99.9% of the time but when completely insane batshit stuff (like dream shortcuts, pulling hammers from nowhere and other cartoon and video game kind of stuff) happens no one blinks an eye. It’s also full of pop culture references and the entire thing is sort of a parody of the classic video game River City Ransom. For instance, defeated exes unrealistically burst into piles of coins rather than say, bleeding to death slowly in an alley. Also, Scott’s in a band. The band’s rival? Crash and the Boys, which notably was the title of a spinoff from the River City Ransom games.

Reviews the comic: Okay, let me start with what doesn’t work because it’s easier to identify. For one thing, when I read comics which isn’t that often, I’m used to top notch art, be it traditional super hero stuff, well constructed webcomics like the aforementioned Dresden Codak or maybe Girl Genius, or “Manga-type-stuff.” By comparison, Pilgrim’s is a little cartoony. It also doesn’t transition scenes well at all and drags a lot of things out more than it needs to. Evil ex #3 for instance gets three separate showdowns, one being the initial challenge, a second occurring in some crowded Canadian Wal-mart type store. I dunno. It didn’t make much sense and it didn’t really go anywhere. And only after wasting time on that did that part of the story get resolved in a third showdown (and the guy basically beats himself in the comic. His psychic powers come from being a vegan “It just makes me better than you.” But he cheats on the diet by eating gelato. At least in the movie Scott tricks him into losing his powers) That said, I read the first three volumes back to back and didn’t realize until after the second one that I’d been pacing around for hours in a friend’s basement and it was like, five in the morning and I could, you know. Sit down. So that my tromping wouldn’t wake anyone. So I guess it was actually fairly engrossing.

Reviews the Movie: My original review was too much comp/contrast with the comics, which I’ll do separately so I’ll keep this simple. It’s a very amusing movie. But it’s ludicrously over the top. Frequently too much. It’s always skirting the line between entertainingly bad and just bad. Also, I feel like the best two characters got shafted in the movie. Namely, Wallace the “cool gay roommate” who was a drunk, sarcastic bitch, and Ramona. I mean, she’s the leading lady. The hell? Still, I had a lot of fun with it but I doubt I’ll re-watch it soon. Would I recommend it? Maybe. But considering the people likely to read this, I’d have to say most of you probably wouldn’t be interested. Unless you’re a big Michael Cera fan, and he’s pretty good, but Cera is Cera is Cera. Go watch Juno or Arrested Development. But not Year One. We do not mention Year One. Ever. Is that understood?

Adaptation: Early on it sticks super close, lifting entire scenes. When they do start paring things down I think it’s often for the better. They cut evil ex #3 to just one big scene for instance. And many of the early changes they make are good ones. In one part, Knives comes looking for Scott after they break up. In the comics he had gone out but just the page before he’d been at the apartment and we didn’t know the scene had changed. In the movie they poke fun at it by having Scott hastily jump out the window. As the movie moves on, it speeds up. A lot. And they start changing things. I only read the comics through issue 3 (of six or seven…I’d think seven given the number of exes however my friend had but six on his shelves). But I think they completely changed ex #4. For starters, that scene was clearly Ramona’s duel against Envy, the girl who broke Scott’s heart somewhere in the backstory. Also up until that point each evil ex had gotten a brief backstory told by a voiceover and pictures from the comic. Then with 4 they just stop doing it. Whoops! Where’d that go? I enjoyed those. Dropped the ball on that one, movie.

On a final note, while I want to stress again that I enjoyed both movie and comics, not everything will get as glowing a review from me as Things-Which-Have-To-Do-With-Genghis-Khan. I deem the franchise enjoyable but forgettable, and even then, it’s more for the male 14-40 market. The chances of you getting the myriad references to video games that came out in 1989 otherwise are pretty slim. Hell, I barely remember ‘em.