With much loved director Edgar Wright’s new movie Scott Pilgrim Vs The World nearly upon us and the trailer buzzing in all our orifices constantly like a trapped bluebottle with a bad attitude, it seems a good time to rattle some cages with my thoughts.
BLOOD REPLACED WITH TANGO
The movie is a graphic novel adaptation in which Michael Cera (STILL playing George Michael from Arrested Development?!) meets the girl of his dreams and then has to fight off seven of her evil ex boyfriends and hope that we as an audience actually care. This being Edgar Wright one would assume that all this action will take place in a splendidly stylish cine-literate world and be an absolute pleasure to watch as it slides across your eyeballs and into your soft squishy brain. It may be the greatest graphic novel adaptation ever. No doubt there will be some fine little details to pick up on, some tasty witticisms, and no shortage of good stuff on the soundtrack.
Poster
But just one thing worries me, and it is one big, major, planet-sized thing really, something that I feel is likely to trip this whole thing up for me before we even get going. The whole movie strikes me as so irritatingly, exhaustingly juvenile and unappealing, and once you get beyond the amazing look of the film you’re going to feel like you’re watching Saved By The Bell or something equally trashy that you would avoid like the plague on TV. From what I know about the plot and narrative of this movie I can’t say it’s particularly interesting. In fact, on the scale of interesting and pointlessly tedious, it sits somewhere beyond boredom. And I’m not sure that my petty brain will be distracted enough from moaning about the lack of interesting story by the razzle-dazzle my eyeballs are being subjected to.
Maybe this is not a movie aimed at me as a twenty-something-bit-of-a-geek who is likely to ‘get the references’ at all. It’s probably aimed squarely at sixth formers and those people you see rotting their brains with filthy Magners and wearing t-shirts from Cheltenham with Japanese writing on. The trailer looked like it could be an ad for Radio One or Top Man or something, with all those in your eyes retro graphics and a mega conscious comic book style that is designed to distract you from the lack of anything deeper or more interesting in the movie.
Is this all going to be surface, like in Sin City, with nothing underneath but a flaccid romance plot and a brittle emptiness? If so then why do we need it- I’ve got my life for that! I found watching the trailer felt like having all your blood replaced with Tango and then having Haribo Tangfastics shoved into your eyes by ADHD teenagers who were actually cyborgs powered by Nintendo and really, really wanted you to be their friend. Some people might enjoy that. I didn’t.
BIOLAB
That said, I do really like Edgar Wright’s style, and even in this trailer too. It is very modern and slick, very schooled and clearly this is someone who watches a lot and knows their stuff. My real worry with him though is that it could be a case of style over substance.
I reckon some could level the same accusation at Sam Raimi (style over substance), but I would argue that Raimers has demonstrated that he can do something more nuanced and considered now. A Simple Plan, for example, is just a great film- a lot more complex than it seems and really mannered and restrained direction from Raimi. He holds back on the hyperstyled comic craziness and in your face explosions that made Evil Dead 2 and Darkman such rollicking rides of joy and instead goes for something totally different that in my mind showed he could do so much more.
Restrained Movie Making
From that point on he managed to combine the stylised pulpy show of his earlier films with a more serious and interesting edge, which worked really well with his Spider-Man movies and made me rate him as one of my favourite directors. There was a lingering darkness that we didn’t see in Evil Dead (which was just lurid craziness) and was hiding just out of sight with Darkman. To an extent Drag Me To Hell was a step back in that it was return to the earlier movies- but it was a ridiculously enjoyable cinematic thrill ride that I wouldn’t like to say a bad word against. The attack of the gumming old woman was beautifully done.
I’d like to see Edgar cross that threshold that A Simple Plan was for Raimi. Because I think he would then prove he’s a genius filmmaker rather than a master stylist. It’s largely the material I guess as well. What I’ve seen of Edgar Wright’s work so far I’ve enjoyed because it’s just very well put together and very well styled, but I there hasn’t been a moment where my heart or brain has been especially gripped and crushed by an unseen hand. I’d like him to make something that steps beyond the screen and gets me within (but not in god-damn 3D!). Edgar clearly does have a good eye but I’d just like to know he can do something a bit beyond surface.
UPDATE:- AIRLOCK VS BIOLAB VS SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD
All of this cage rattling appears to have unsettled my fellow ‘commentator on all things cinema-going’, Airlock.
AIRLOCK
AIRLOCK: “Ah Bio, I see you’ve got your grizzled goggles on. To quote from the SPvTW trailer “If your life had a face I’d punch it”! You should kit yourself out with some rose tinted specs like me. I’m really confident that SPvTW will be fun, imaginative and unlike anything we’ve seen before. During the current climate where we’ve got comic book adaptations being inserted into our brain quicker than a chatty parasitic worm can devour them (our brains that is) this film will probably manage to stand out from the crowd, like a suit at a comic book convention.
The time for Edgar to take something on requiring more restraint is not now – all that matters is that filmmakers make movies that they are deeply passionate about and are able to create their vision without dilution. If you’re comparing Edgar with Raimi we’re probably talking about Scott Pilgrim being the equivalent of Darkman in terms of career development. Edgar is two films into his rumoured Blood (“you’ve got red on you”) and Ice Cream (Cornetto) trilogy in much the same way that Raimi had made Evil Dead 2 before going on to Darkman.
According to Wikipedia (the fountain of all knowledge) a film critic from The New Yorker commented on Raimi’s filmmaking after seeing Darkman: “Raimi works from inside the cheerfully violent adolescent-male sensibility of superhero comics, as if there were no higher style for a filmmaker to aspire to, and the absence of condescension is refreshing.” My guess is that we’ll be saying something similar about Edgar after seeing SPvTW.”
MAKE UP YOUR OWN PUNY MIND
Perhaps my vacuous comrade is right. I’m sure I’ll be eating my words again as well as my entrails and my self worth after we see Scott P. This movie probably isn’t the time or the material for Edgar Wright to show the world he can give us something more meaningful and lasting. It’s only that my expectations have been raised, my interest in his films engaged, and I’d love to see him craft something that will resonate within my biomechanical heart rather than just slide off my eyeballs and be quickly forgotten like school firework displays or drunken nights with gaudy working girls.”
But don’t just listen to us two deranged psychopaths, see the trailer here & make up yer own puny mind:
http://www.scottpilgrimthemovie.com/
Flashy and Argumentative Regards
Biolab
XXX
Pablum from the (bio)Lablum 