Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Film

If you've seen me in person at all the past few months, I've probably mentioned Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to you. I first saw the trailer back when I saw The A-Team, and as you can imagine from the fact that I would constantly re-watch the trailers at home whenever I had a free moment, I've been looking forward to it ever since. What can I say? The trailers have been instant merriment, a quick pick-me-up during a dull moment. And so when I finally had the chance to see the whole damn thing this past Thursday, I was confident that it would easily stride atop of my movie rankings, or very close thereof. And having just completed the six-set graphic novel collection by Canadian cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley, I was even more excited, having already been drawn into the story of one young man's quest to defeat his new girlfriend's seven evil exes who are out to make her new boyfriend's life a living hell.

Of course, the movie wouldn't even be in existence if not for the pre-existing graphic novel. Published by Oni Press, the first volume of the Scott Pilgrim series, called Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, was released in August of 2004 and immediately the idea of adapting it into a movie was begun, with director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) brought in almost immediately. Though most of the story had yet to be committed to paper, O'Malley was very involved in the creation of the script, with several of his dialogue lines and plot bits making their way to the movie, and in return, several of the scripts used had influence in volumes 3 and 4 of the graphic novel.

The Gorgeous Mary Elizabeth Winstead

You'll notice that I say "graphic novel" and not "manga" in referring to Scott Pilgrim, though one could be forgiven for confusing this title with the latter. The books are designed not unlike those one would see in section of your local bookstore consigned to the popular Japanese import titles. Black and white, with rare color pages, big eyes, and exaggerated animations, it's not unlike many eastern titles on the market. O'Malley was in fact influenced by manga, but his style is really closer to, say, Chynna Clugston's Blue Monday than Tite Kubo's Bleach. It's got tons of western influence as well, and it's setting in frigid Canada already sets itself apart from most titles in general.

The Scott Pilgrim series starts out great and gets better with every volume, eventually winning Harvey and Eisner awards for their strong character development, funny dialogue, crazy action, and possibly most important, a believably developing relationship between Scott and the love of his life, Ramona Flowers. With such high standards for storytelling and with excellent trailers paving the way for what we expect to see the most entertaining film this year, can the truth live up even close to the hype? In an answer, no.

Scott Pilgrim Kicks Ass

The film starts strong, following closely to the story of the first volume of the graphic novel, the only title in the series finished before scripts had begun to be written. In it, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a slacker and part-time bassist for the band Sex Bob-Omb (Names after the explosive Super Mario villain) with his friends Stephen Stills on guitar (Mark Webber), Kim Pine on drums (Alison Pill), and "Young" Neil who's their biggest fan boy (Johnny Simmons). The 23-year old Pilgrim has just begun dating a high-schooler, 17-year-old Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), with whom he likes spending time because this kind of relationship is "easy" for him, one year after a particularly break-up. He shares an apartment (and bed) with his gay friend Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin) and for the time being, life seems easy. That changes when he sees a mysterious stranger in a dream, who eventually turns out to be the very real Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an American who just moved to Toronto to start over and get away from her past. That past manifests itself as the League of Evil Exes, made up of seven evil people who blame Ramona for ruining their lives and seeking that she should never be involved with be taken out of the picture, ensuring Ramona could never be happy in a relationship. The various fight scenes (and actually, many other parts of the movie) are very much inspired by video games and music, creating a unique, and outrageous, way of pushing the story forward in a way that has never been done on the big screen before. So from the point that Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) crashes a battle of the bands meet to fight Scott on, our hero is constantly on the defensive, worried about from where the next attack may arrive.

L-R: Cera, Winstead, Simmons, Wong, Pill, Webber

The acting in the film is quite good, with several of the supporting roles cast able to almost perfectly embody the graphic novel's unique conceptions, especially Wong as the Scott-crazy high-schooler Knives and Culkin as the scene-stealing Wallace. Both actors manage to perfectly personify their roles and expand upon what's known from the comic. Pill, Webber and Simmons are good as the band-mates, though little is done with them. Anna Kendrick had not yet been nominated for her Oscar for Up in the Air when shooting of this film had begun but provides much spunk for her relatively small role, and Winstead takes a great opportunity and does a fantastic job with the lead role she's been given. It's almost unfortunate that Cera is the weakest link in this ensemble cast. He plays the nerd card right, but I'm beginning to wonder if there's much range in his performances, as he's pretty much playing a slightly-older version of his character from Arrested Development, albeit with fighting prowess. He just lacks a small part of Scott's personality, his utter devotion to Ramona, that detracts from his performance. And that's why it's a shame that the ensemble cast isn't given more of a chance to shine, like they are in the comics. It's a minor quibble, but more of Kim Pine or Envy Adams (Brie Larsen) would not have hurt the story, especially since it had been pared down to a scant 112 minutes. That's a LOT of character development cut out.

The League of Evil Exes

The exes are a good variety, with the personas mostly consistent with the books. Matthew Patel is exactly the same as his print version, not surprising since the entire story to that point is a slightly truncated copy of the first book. But skateboarder/action star Lucas Lee (Chris Evans) is much different from his character in the book, who wasn't even evil, just a sellout. Parenthood's Mae Whitman is good-but-not-great as the fourth evil ex, the lesbian half-ninja Roxy Richter. But the true standout of the exes is Brandon "Superman" Routh as Todd Ingram, rock star bassist, third evil ex, and the current boyfriend of Envy Adams, Scott's ex-girlfriend. Routh manages to convey humor in silent delivery. Never mind that the lines aren't ad-libbed (they appear exactly the same in the third volume) his delivery is perfect and who knew Routh could actually ACT?? His was a pleasant surprise, easily the best part of the movie. Too bad it was squarely in the middle, as Jason Schwartzman, while seemingly cast as the penultimate evil ex-boyfriend, doesn't stack up as a main villain as he should. Even worse, the Katayanagi twins, evil exes 5 and 6, are turned from robot-building geniuses into a pair of anonymous pop stars, with not a single line of dialogue between them. The castration of their roles was not only a side-effect of the movie entering production before the comic was finished, but apparently the lack of interest the filmmakers had in new evil characters by this point and rushed through them to get to Schwartzman. In fact, from about halfway through the Roxy Richter story onward, the movie feels a little forced. A shame that such potentially interesting characters are tossed aside like garbage.

Brandon Routh shows off his vegan psychic powers

And this leads to my ultimate gripes about the movie. It would be folly to exactly convert a good story like that in the Scott Pilgrim books directly into a film, because then you'd have a six-hour film and no matter how good a performance is, it rarely will keep an audience in the spirit for that long. However, so much was cut out of the stories that it practically makes the story somewhat unbelievable (okay, as unbelievable as a story involving quick-travel dimensions, mystic Indian warriors, psychic vegan rockers, lesbian half-ninjas, and enemies that explode into currency can be) over the course of the film. Lack of minor character development is one problem. Scott's previous relationships before Ramona, including those with Kim and Envy (whose breakup had a heavy toll for Scott) are barely mentioned. Kim has been reduced to a useless wise-cracker for whom the story at large has no meaning, and Envy had a much bigger role in the books, but in the movie that ends with Todd's defeat. Those characters, as well as Scott's old high-school friend Lisa Miller (who's completely cut out of the film adaptation) are major factors in the continual degradation of the Scott/Ramona relationship over the course of the book's story, replaced in the film by Ramona simply being tired of her past catching up to her, and Scott's fear that he'll lose Ramona. These things DO have impact in the books, but on a much smaller scale. But the biggest issue the film has may be it's time line. In the books, more than a year passes between the events of volumes 1 and 6. That's a lot of time for character, relationship and plot development. In the movies, this time is scaled down to a couple of WEEKS at most. It's one thing to speed up the pattern of ex-attacks, another thing to speed up a story to fit more snugly into film-length entertainment, but the ups and downs of Scott and Ramona's relationship is believable BECAUSE it takes place over so long a period of time. The wear and tear that exists between them is a result of small things over a length of time, not big things over the short term. And cutting the film short means Scott doesn't even get to do any of the major steps forward he performs in volume 4, such as successfully getting a job and moving in with Ramona. In all, the comic featured a realistic relationship during unrealistic scenarios. With the movie, the realism of the relationship is gone. And to add insult to injury by the end, we're led to believe that he'd be better off back with Knives than Ramona.

Big Hammer

So does that mean I didn't like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? Oh, no, I liked it. I liked it A LOT. I had serious issues with the movie, mostly due to the graphic novel series still being so fresh in my mind, though the film had enough foibles of it's own. No, the excellent use of video game imagery to tell the story, outrageous humor, and the amazing acting from the ensemble cast, still puts it high on my chart for the year, even if it fell far short on expectations. I may not have loved it quite so much as I had been sure I would, but Scott Pilgrim vs. the World still ends up ranked at #5 on my top 10 list for the year.

That's right. I have a top 10 movies list.

Enjoy!

Resistance is Futile

Not long ago, I was bemoaning how poorly a well-known graphic novel, Whiteout, had been translated to the big screen. Among other things, the film simply didn't translate into the riveting entertainment I'd hoped for when I rented it. In writing that review, I neglected to mention two other films that had also been born from graphic novel format. One is obvious, the biggest blockbuster of them all, Watchmen, which I did not enjoy (in the immortal words of Jay Sherman: "It Stinks") nearly as much as I should have.

The other was released last fall to much less fanfare: Surrogates, based on the relatively little-known comic series of the same name which ran from 2005 to 2006, and was written by Robert Venditti and drawn by Brett Weldele. Despite never having heard of the graphic novel, my first impressions of the movie trailers that preceded the movie's release were mostly positive: In a world where humans control synthetic bodies called surrogates to carry out everyday tasks, the future almost looks idylic as violent crime is down to a standstill and even if an operator's surrogate is accidentally damaged or destroyed, no harm can come to the user. People never even have to leave their homes.

Of course, this wouldn't be much of a film if that was all there was to it. When two people are murdered by a weapon that somehow manages to kill the user as well as disable the surrogate - and one of them happens to be the son of the Surrogate's creator, Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell), it's immensely remarkable because these have become the first murders in fifteen years. Also throwing trouble into the mix are nationwide pockets of people who live on anti-surrogate land that they call Dread Reservations and are led by the charismatic Prophet (Ving Rhames). Claiming that Surrogacy has caused people to forget how to be human, a Surrogate attempting to enter these zones would be violently opposed by the Prophet's fanatical followers.

What I had at first found fascinating about Surrogates was that it had been filmed in my hometown (and where I still call home) of Boston, MA, and some of the surrounding towns. It was actually interesting for once to see familiar territory, as far too often films claiming to be in Boston film elsewhere, Toronto for instance. I was sure that would be the only thing I would enjoy about the movie, especially after a less-than-stellar opening which was informative as to how this universe came to be but otherwise not entertaining. However, the slick storytelling and visuals quickly vacated those thoughts from my mind, and I proceeded to mindlessly enjoy one of last year's more underrated films.

The story moves along as a brisk pace as we're introduced to FBI agents Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) and Jennifer Peters (Radha Mitchell) as they take on the double murder case. Like most people, they use surrogates for their daily tasks, though Greer seems to tire of the entire surrogate idea, especially as his wife (Rosamund Pike) seems to use their surrogacy to escape the trauma of losing their son to a car accident. In fact, we barely see most people's real faces, as almost every major character is using a surrogate in place of their real bodies. In a major turning point of the film, Greer irreperably damages his surrogate in pursuit of the man suspected of committing the murders and must continue his investigation in person. He doesn't even remember the last time he left his home, and the movie does a good job explaining that, even seeing the world through a surrogate, reintroducing someone to the outside world after so long would introduce all kinds of mental trauma (such as anxiety, which is depicted). In his pursuit of the people responsible for the murders, he is also discovering a conspiracy to destroy the surrogates, and perhaps even those who would use them at all.

I've never read the graphic novel (or it's prequel, Surrogates: Flesh and Bone), but while I can't comment on the comic's art styles in comparison to the movie's, I can definitely say that from a quick synopsis of the comic's plot that the movie took numerous liberties with the plot, one for instance being that in the comic, there are no murders that push the book forward, only the desire to eliminate surrogacy by destroying the bodies. It's a good thing the movie changed that aspect, as in the comic's story, that would add to little more than vandalism. Also, in a positive turn, the leads of the comic, which had been two men, change, with one of them having eventually become Peters. Remember those few weeks ago when I decried the reduction of Whiteout's two lead females to one female because the studios wouldn't buy two female leads? Here's one for Surrogates showing some guts. And it's not as if Peters has been changed that way just so she can become someone's romantic angle, it's just a case of someone saying that they wanted a female for this role and made it happen.

Acting performances will never be considered the highlights of your typical action movie, that's why I was actually surprised by the level of performances shown in this film. Willis does a little above his typical acting level, while others like Cromwell, Mitchell, Pike, Jack Noseworthy and Boris Kodjoe puting forth solid performances, with nobody dragging the acting talent down. The only one I wasn't crazy about was was Rhames as the Prophet, as the character seemed a little too cliche in it's portrayal. I assume it was intentional, but I didn't think it was particularly smart to show one of the main villains of the movie in this way, though perhaps that aspect was derived from the comic. But the best performances may have been a collaborative. There's just something about the way a surrogate move and speaks that lets on that they're not the same as you and me. Besides the startling attractiveness of the surrogate, there's almost a robotic, unnatural way that they walk, talk, dance and interact that makes it easy to discern the differences, and whoever was responsible for making sure every last extra was moving just the right way deserves a ton of credit, as it did tons to assure the legitimacy of the piece's atmosphere.

The movie can hardly expect to be perfect, however. Though I understand that most people who are bigots rarely are well informed about the thing they're bigoted towards, it was a drag that no further intelligence could have been gleamed for the people in the Dread Reservation towards surrogacy. They were mostly portratyed as redneck gun-toting racists for the most part, and that, while accurate, was not wholely welcome when I hoped they would have some more higher understanding about why their way was better (or perhaps get an explanation for why the military didn't put a clamp down military-style on these pockets of resistance where they basically seceded from the Union). Critics have stated that the movie devolves to pure action-y for the final act of the film, and while that's at least partially true, it's done smartly with enough surprises that you want to find the next piece of the puzzle. It's all done smartly and never makes you feel like you're riding the wave, going only where they take you.

Smart is the best word I can associate with Surrogates, in fact. It's a slick film and probably the best film by occasional director Jonathan Mostow, who hadn't directed a film since 2003's Terminator 3. It's a great comeback film for Mostow and an extremely entertaining film in it's own right. Mostow might give Zack Snyder or Dominic Sena a lesson in how to make a good comic-movie adaptation. Maybe they'd learn something.

Whiteout: Attack of the Sub-Par Comic Adaptations

Typically, you can tell how popular comic series are by how quickly they are adapted into other formats. 30 Days of Night, Sin City, Wanted, Kick-Ass and 300 have all been turned into big blockbuster movies, and that doesn't even include all the big superhero movies or series of movies like Spiderman, X-Men, Wolverine, Punisher, Batman, Superman, Hulk, and the upcoming Thor, Captain America, Green Lantern, and The Avengers, not to mention Linda Carter's popularity on the Wonder Woman TV show. And of course, the Scott Pilgrim series gets released in cinematic form next month. Frankly I'm surprised the excellent Pride of Baghdad hasn't had it's movie rights bought yet. The studios see it thus: The readers and people who love these comics or graphic novels are a built-in audience, so making these movies would seem to be as close to guaranteed success as you can get (see: video game to movie adaptations). But unfortunately, the visions of comic creators and movie studio execs rarely commingle, and the result is often less than the sum of it's parts.

So let's take Whiteout, based on the Greg Rucka (Hellboy, Batwoman: Elegy) series of the same name. Right off the bat, studio execs didn't like the idea of two female leads, and so scriptwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber wrote in a male replacement into their screenplay. Apparently the studios were afraid that the movie would not draw large audiences if the film had two females in the leading roles. Apparently, these studio folks forget the critical success of Thelma and Louise. Not that it matters much, as in the film there isn't a scene not involving US Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale), often with no other speaking characters around. She's pretty much the movie's compass, with others having little to add to the scenery of the film.

The movie takes place in the most unlikely of scenarios, an Antarctic murder mystery. At a geographical research settlement in the middle of nowhere, people are getting ready to leave before winter sets in. Among them is Stetko, who is resigning her place as Marshall on the base to go home. Before she can get ready to leave, she's informed that a dead body has been discovered and so she checks it out. It looks at first like he fell from a cliff to his death, but a strange stitched-up wound on his leg is odd, and on further investigation it looks like he took an ice ax to the chest. Further investigation leads to a group of scientists who were searching a remote area for meteorites but may have come upon something much bigger, and murder for greed is certainly nothing new.

All the while, a large storm approaches the base, threatening to leave anyone not gone when it hits stranded for the winter. It's here that Whiteout gets it's name, from the storm in which you can't see anything in front of you and you can freeze to death in seconds. It's this phenomena that may be the scariest villain of the film. If you get confronted by the ax-wielding murderer, you might get away unscathed. If you get caught outside by the whiteout, it's over. This however also leads to the biggest disappointment of the film; The snow effects are terrible. Both real and fake snow were used in the filming of the movie, but unfortunately it's extremely easy to tell the two apart. Certain sections (including a big outdoor storm scene) fail to look the slightest bit realistic, and in this type of movie, you need those effects to look their best, because the rest of the movie needs a distraction.

Now I haven't read the original graphic novel, so I can't make any informed comparisons between the original and the movie, but I find it hard to believe that the original story was so simple and formulaic. Worst of all, there is no real mystery. We find out everything at the same time as our protagonists, with no clues left for the audience to form their own theories before the mystery is solved. Worse, coincidence seems to be paramount, as everywhere Stetko goes, there's the black-covered ax murderer to stop a potential source of information from talking. And yet the only cringe-worthy plot point has little to do with the murders or the storm. In a minor plot piece a major character accidentally loses their gloves while being chased  by the murderer outside, and they suffer major frostbite on two digits of their hand and later must have them amputated. It's easily the creepiest part of the film and also shows the dangers of just being outside in Antarctica.

There's little to the special effects or the story, so acting has to save this movie, right? Sorry, no. Though Beckinsale does everything right in her lead role, the supporting roles are played by little-known actors such as Gabriel Macht and Colombus Short, and not because they're such great unknown actors. It's not their fault, really, it's just that the characters outside of Stetko are given so little, there's no real character for the other actors to cling to. Even Tom Skerritt is underused, as the scene-chewing ability he's gained from almost fifty years of movie making are largely unneeded here.

For a film that took almost ten years and three production companies to make and at one time had Reece Witherspoon in the lead role, I was still largely hopeful for this movie. But Kate Beckinsale has a reputation for picking poor films (Underworld, for all it's leather catsuit fun, was by far the best and hardly a great film, and I still want to see Vacancy) that is exacerbated by this one. I didn't have a bad time watching Whiteout, but I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone else, certainly not if you've already read the graphic novel. Even if you haven't, I'd recommend you read instead of watch, and leave it at that. Then watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine. See, now there was a FUN comic book adaptation.

Just as a note: I'm going to start taking recommendations for future posts of The Latest Issue. I'm still getting by with my own concepts, but if anyone has anything they want to recommend me to see, whether movie, game, comic or even book, you might see it in the future here on the site! For recommendations, just pop me an e-mail (it's in my profile) and thanks in advance for your contribution! I'd be nowhere without the people reading, and it's for you all that I'm still writing at all. So thanks again!