OK, after much reflection, I've definitely been too hard on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It's kind of ridiculous to even say that, considering I really liked it to begin with, but I take back everything I said about being disappointed. That's not to say I don't still have issues, but as you'll see, they don't amount to much.
So let's start with what worked. Like I said yesterday, the casting was impeccable, particularly Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells, Aubrey Plaza as Julie Powers and Ellen Wong as Knives Chau. Everyone looked perfect but also understood the tone, humor and feel of the graphic novels. That goes a long way because one weak link can throw off the whole thing. It's kind of eerie to see how much some of the actors look like their cartoon counterparts (if you haven't compared the cartoon Stephen Stills with a picture of Mark Webber, you'll be amazed). That's also the second point: the visual direction, the effects, the costumes, the music - it was all exactly right. From the Universal logo at the beginning, I could tell that Edgar Wright had really thought of everything.
Now, obviously I'm looking at this from the perspective of an established Scott Pilgrim fan. I'm interested to find out what people who aren't familiar with the graphic novels make of it - I'm sure it's still as much fun to watch, but they won't get the nuances of the treatment. Maybe that's a good thing? I tried not to, but I couldn't help myself thinking things like, "that didn't happen there," "she didn't say that," or "what about XYZ?" My biggest complaint, then, is that there just wasn't enough of it. Not much of a negative, I know, but there are six books and so much more I would have loved to see. How about the little subplot about Todd and Lynette (and her bionic arm!) or more about subspace, which I don't think was really addressed at all. Hopefully there will be some interesting deleted scenes on the DVD.
While I was thinking about this today, it brought up some comparisons to Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. I don't like to think about that movie much because it was a huge disappointment to me, but it also had to fit a large amount of source material into one film. I am a huge fan of the Lemony Snicket book series, and the cast was just incredible. The weird choice that was made was to compile the first three books (of the 13-book series) into one film. From what I understand, it was intended to be a franchise, but if the studio intends to make more films, they'll have to rethink their strategy - it's been six years and those kids are all grown up. Anyway, those first three books are my favorites in the series, and it felt wrong to compress them so much. Compare that strategy to the way other children's book series have been adapted - for The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and Twilight, each book gets its own film, and for the final Harry Potter and Twilight books, they are being stretched into two. I know Lemony Snicket's books (and the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, for that matter) are much shorter, but they are full of so much detail and intricate storytelling, they deserve more room to breathe. I'm not saying there should have been six Scott Pilgrim films, but I think they could have filled out two films easily.
If I have one real complaint about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, it's the ending. This is where I insert the spoiler alert. I haven't read the final volume of Scott Pilgrim yet, so I don't know if the ending of the movie parallels it at all. I will say that the end - the actual end - did fit well with the story the movie told. The part before that is where I have my issue. As good as it was, that last fight scene felt like it would never end. So Scott fights Gideon, he wins and they're happy, but oh no, Gideon's still alive. Then Scott goes back and literally does it all over again - fight Gideon, win, Gideon's still alive. And then, when you think it's finally done, they introduce Nega-Scott. I will admit that last bit had a really great payoff, one of my favorites of the whole film actually, but I was dreading having to wait out another fight. My first point of comparison was The Return of the King - ending after ending after ending - but I just realized it's a lot more like Hot Fuzz. In the commentary for that film, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg say that they intended the final fight scene to be one opponent after another after another until the final one at model village, when the exhausted Nicholas Angel voices the frustrations of the audience: "Pack it in, Frank, you silly bastard." They knew that by that point, we'd had enough, but I didn't get that feeling with Scott Pilgrim; I feel like they could have happily repeated the final sequence forever. I think that's a small quibble though because like I said, it was a really great movie.
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