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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Scott Pilgrim vs. Me



For your pleasure, I've articulated my thoughts about Edgar Wright's latest over on my Shot for Shot column at Comics Bulletin.By the way, I actually had the chance to interview the comic series writer, Bryan Lee O'Malley a little while back and he had some interesting things to say about the books.

As such things tend to go, it's not my final word on the subject. I took in a second showing on Sunday just to give the movie another shake, and maybe let the richness of the experience take over. Unfortunately, I think I came away with more problems than pluses the second time around:

  • The problem of "compression" I noted in the review feels even more present the second time. In a lot of ways it feels like a hurried race to the finish: get as many plot points and fan service from the books in before the final scene. 
  • Brie Larson's Envy Adams just doesn't do it for me. While I think the film is populated with good to excellent performances (Kieran Culkin being the top of the heap) Larson's vamping is cranked up to an unbearable "11." When she reads her lines into the phone in her first scene I was cringing, I couldn't take it. 
  • Am I the only one to notice that ex #4, Roxy Richter never gets named in the film? Or did I miss it at some point? 
  • Speaking of, Mae Whitman has a lot of fun with the Roxy role but at some point it seems like someone told her to drop or scale back the Southern accent for her fight scene.
  • Occasionally (just once in a while, mind you) I was bugged by some of the incidental game-related sound effects that were unattached to any kind of visual cue. That is to say, occasionally there'd be a brief 8-bit beep or chirp accompanying something like walking or whatever and it caused me to look around for the jerk in the audience with the cell phone.
  • I would very much like to buy the soundtrack and score, but both are only available (in MP3 form, I mean) via iTunes are exorbitant rates (something like $16 a pop). 
  • Back to Larson, her performance notwithstanding, her stage presence during the Clash at Demonhead concert scene is pretty great, and it helps that she's accompanied by the strongest track in the movie.

2 comments:

  1. Roxy did get named in the movie. I want to say I heard it but at the very least her name was on the list that Ramona wrote.

    I definitely agree with you about Envy's stage presence. It was the best song in the movie but I was wondering how well the song would work without the visuals.

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  2. Re: Roxy

    Yeah, see that's the kind of detail I'd pride myself on picking up, so missing it twice feels like it was kind of buried.

    Also, hi Peter!

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