SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE CIVILIANS

One of the most painful reminders of my own nerd-dom came this August, with the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It seemed like everyone I knew was geekfapping in anticipation for a good month beforehand, to the point where even I (or, um, especially I) addressed the issue. It was a new Edgar Wright picture, and everybody saw Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, right? Michael Cera was the lead, and everybody saw Arrested Development, right? (Ed. Note: bear with me here, I know you're getting suspicious). It's based on a comic . . . and everyone likes comics . . . right? It's in the style of a video game . . . and people . . . like video games . . . right . . .?

As it turned out, of course, Scott Pilgrim tanked at the box office, making back only about half its production budget. And yet . . . everyone I fucking know went to see it and loved it. HOW COULD THIS BE? Obviously, with magazine articles every fucking week about how this is the Age of the Nerd and so forth, Scott Pilgrim should have been a massive coming-out party, a victory lap. Well, obviously, it wasn't. So what gives?

I missed Scott Pilgrim in theaters, as its release pre-dated my lovely arrangement with Tor.com (aside from having the good taste to employ me, they have a lot of better and occasionally famous writers nerding out, so bookmark them if you're into SF and or fantasy). Thanks to Universal's evil white guys making the excellent business decision to release the DVD in time for Christpicuousconsumptionmas season, I finally got to see it. And yes, it is everything I could ever have expected. This is a picture by nerds, of nerds, and for nerds. I absolutely fucking loved it. I mean, wow. That is to say, holy shit. In other words, god DAMN.

On the other hand, I understand exactly why it flopped. First of all, although everyone naturally thinks of their people as being the whole world, I am objectively aware that nerds are a minority. One need look no further than high school: there are more dudes on a football team than a chess team, to be glib and reductive and right. Also, Scott Pilgrim is very specifically about nerds under the age of 30, with cultural references and assumptions it would be very hard to expect someone over 35 to get, leaving our older and grayer comrades potentially feeling left out in the cold (even though A.O. Scott, in one of his finest hours in recent memory, declared, “There are some movies about youth that just make you feel old, even if you aren't . . . Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has the opposite effect. Its speedy, funny, happy-sad spirit is so infectious that the movie makes you feel at home in its world even if the landscape is, at first glance, unfamiliar.” Sláinte, Tony). Then there's the matter of all but those nerds specifically of the cineaste variety preferring not to rub shoulders with the great, loud, candy-unwrapping, cell-phone using unwashed in movie theaters (minor aside: when I saw The Warrior's Way recently, there was a group of mentally challenged people on an outing, and they literally mooed throughout the whole movie. I'm not kidding, exaggerating, or distorting in the slightest. That's the 21st century movie theater experience in a nutshell, folks), instead waiting for the DVD. And hey, I'm totally guilty of that, so I guess I'm part of the problem.

Word of mouth was another problem, as the non-nerds in the critical community and the handful of civilians who went to see Scott Pilgrim for whatever fucking reason (Ed. Note: Movies By Bowes ™ personally apologizes to alla y'all; this movie is just how our people roll) came away crinkling their noses and going “What in the sweet living fuck was that?” The best explanation I can give won't do any good: “It's a video game trapped in a movie's body.” Media eugenics is a difficult thing to pull off (literary tricks, for example, work in literature because they're literary tricks; they don't always read in movies) especially in the—in some ways—very similar media of cinema and video games. Both are audiovisual media, but there's an obvious, fundamental difference: the player controls the video game, where the audience for a movie is, a priori, passive. This is why the video game Heavy Rain, though it aroused the ire of hardcore gamers who didn't give a fuck about other media, worked as a movie trapped in a video game's body; the player could control the “movie.” A video game trapped in a movie's body has the problem of there being fewer movie people who are also gamers than there are gamers who also like movies. I mean, look, I thoroughly enjoyed taking bong hits on the couch and watching my friend Greg beat The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64, but I'm fundamentally predisposed to find video games interesting, Ocarina of Time might be the best video game ever made, and I get caught up in the narrative created by the player, even if I'm only watching. I was also high. But that's just me. As you may have gathered, I'm a little weird.

It isn't entirely clear at first that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is actually a video game masquerading as a movie. Set in a vividly, heroically portrayed Toronto, it starts out in High Indie Twee mode, with protagonist Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) faced with the mildly embarassing task of introducing his new girlfriend Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) to his gay roommate/best friend Kieran Culkin and his bandmates in the gloriously titled garage band Sex Bob-Omb. She is, it transpires, 17 and still in high school. “Yeah, Catholic school, with the uniform and everything,” a facepalming Michael Cera tells disapproving, gossipy sister Anna Kendrick. Knives thinks Scott's the coolest, and she loves Sex Bob-Omb, but Michael Cera is awkward about the whole thing. What? Michael Cera, awkward? The deuce you say! Yes, it's true.
The whole thing feels like the ur-Michael Cera movie, the one where the audience is finally going to rise as one, kidnap the fucker and inject him with megadoses of testosterone, steroids, and PCP (the last because, hey, why the fuck not) and enforce manhood. Look, I like the guy, but seriously. Anyway, some stylish Edgar Wright direction aside, it totally feels like the proverbial Movie Michael Cera Has Made Nine Gajillion Times (even though it's really only like four) . . . UNTIL we have dream sequence. Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) rollerblades through Michael Cera's dream, and then into his life. This is the most non-naturalistic thing yet to happen, even though we've gotten pretty broad hints that this isn't a non-naturalistic picture.

So Michael Cera, a ball-less whiny douche at the picture's outset, does the very ball-less and douche-y thing and fails to actually break up with Knives before wooing the initially reluctant Mary Elizabeth Winstead, a glamorous, mysterious (American!) woman, everything the sincere, guilelessly candid girl Knives isn't. Before Michael Cera is even officially dating MEW (too bad she's not Mary Elizabeth Ophelia Winstead, amirite?) he gets an e-mail from some guy claiming to be a member of a group called the Seven Evil Exes (of Ramona), who intends to fight Michael Cera to death, but Michael Cera is so distracted by thoughts of his new not-yet-even-really girlfriend and the Battle of the Bands that Sex Bob-Omb is entering that he pays it no mind.

Turns out, you should always read your fucking e-mail. A spooky Indian dude in some seriously gay clothes (my friend Steve's pal Satya Bhabha) shows up in the middle of the concert, interrupting the awkward first meeting of Knives and Ramona, and repeats his challenge to Michael Cera (part of which includes a faux-Bollywood number that flunked lovely and talented authority Filmigirl's sniff test so hard it bounced). Michael Cera immediately throws down and—shockingly—kicks ass in the finest video-game fashion. End of Act One, beginning of awesome. Michael Cera beats the shit out of the guy, who turns into a pile of coins as a score appears.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead explains at this point that Michael Cera might have to defeat seven of her Evil Exes. Not only is this a great metaphor for dealing with a new girlfriend's past (which, hey, I know it's ridiculous, but it's not something we're just magically okay with without a little effort) it provides Michael Cera with something to do for the rest of the movie, and it's a wonderfully video-game-y conceit.

In a nice bit of numerological significance, it's in the midst of Michael Cera's awkward second date (he's so nervous anticipating it his gay roommate calls him gay) that he encounters Evil Ex #2: American movie star Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), to whose crappy movies on the Spike Channel the gay roommate has been fapping (hey, the latter half of the phrase “gay guy” is “guy”) in anticipation of his coming to Toronto to shoot a movie. Turns out Mary Elizabeth Winstead dated him in middle school and he never quite got over it. So Michael Cera figures, I outfought the first Evil Ex, piece of cake. Except Chris Evans is an action movie star, which means he has lots of stunt men, all of whom gang up on Michael Cera and stomp the crap out of him (God I love this movie . . .) but Michael Cera prevails. Chris Evans, however, fights him to a standstill, until Michael Cera tricks him into doing a skateboard trick so fuckin dangerous Johnny Knoxville probably wouldn't do it, which leads to Chris Evans' explosive, coin-producing downfall.

Evil Ex #3 is my favorite of the bunch: a bleached-blonde Brandon Routh, who is not only Mary Elizabeth Winstead's ex, he's fucking Michael Cera's ex-who-he's-not-really-100%-over, big indie rock star Envy Adams (Brie Larson), for whom he plays bass. Just like Michael Cera. And, because Brandon Routh is a vegan, he's both telepathic and telekinetic (Ed. Note: FUCK YES) and so, when the two have their “bass battle”, Brandon Routh is able to predict his every move. The deus ex machina that saves Michael Cera's ass made me need to pause the movie for five minutes so I could laugh to the point of tears: the “vegan police” (Thomas Jane and Clifton Collins, Jr., aka the guy Catherine Zeta-Jones tells to “get out of the car and shoot him in the head” in Traffic) bust Brandon Routh for accidentally drinking half and half in a coffee Michael Cera sneakily hands him (“I put the half and half in that cup but I thought really really hard about putting it in this one”), as well as mistakenly eating gelato . . . and chicken parmesan. This last thoroughly disgusts Brie Larson, and is cause for the vegan police to strip him of his superpowers. Wait, hold on, sorry, give me a minute . . . HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA . . . HAHAHAHA . . . oh man, heh heh heh . . . hahaha . . . mmm mmm.

All this getting his ass handed to him left and right is starting to weigh on Michael Cera, who starts getting a bit snippy with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who following a battle with Evil Ex #4 (Mae Whitman, a product of MEW's “bi-curious” phase) that Michael Cera hilariously wins by exploiting an erogenous zone behind Mae Whitman's knee, takes some time apart. Michael Cera's determined to win her back though, and it turns out that evil exes #5 and 6 (“Did she date them at the same time?”) are a malevolent J-pop duo (Keita and Shota Saito) who Sex Bob-Omb have to defeat with RAWK, and do, winning Michael Cera a 1-up (also known as an extra life).

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is in the audience with her most recent ex, who turns out to be the record company douchebag (Jason Schwartzman, having more fun than is usually allowed within the law) who's sponsored the battle of the bands. He offers to sign Sex Bob-Omb, over Michael Cera's protests, which lead to him being replaced by #1 fan and bass understudy Young Neil. Not only that, but a confused and sad Mary Elizabeth Winstead has helplessly succumbed to Jason Schwartzman's charms (later revealed to be a microchip he's attached to her brainstem, a wonderful metaphor for the hold douchebag exes have over one) once more. He is thus revealed as the last Evil Ex (even if he's no longer an Ex, if she's with him, he's still Evil) . . . THE FINAL BOSS.

Like any boss fight worth half a fuck, Michael Cera dies the first time, after getting Knives and Ramona thoroughly pissed at him for cheating each with the other, and getting his ass banjaxed by the thoroughly evil Jason Schwartzman. However, he still has that extra life, which he uses, and like any good gamer, he learns from the mistakes he made in the first boss fight (fighting for his own self-respect rather than his love for Ramona, which he never even properly expressed, instead using the L-word he thought his gay roommate was hinting at: “lesbians.” ie “I'm in lesbians with you.” Yep, go ahead and facepalm; also manning up and apologizing to Knives and Ramona before they can get pissed and turn on him, thus turning Knives into an ally, and holy fuck has she got martial arts moves) and this time wins.

Seeing the teamwork exhibited by Knives and Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead makes the “noble sacrifice” of letting the two of them be “happy” together and walks off. But, as Knives reminds Michael Cera, he's been fighting for Mary Elizabeth Winstead for the whole movie. She also completely casts aside the doormat role she's been consigned to for so much of the movie by affirming “I'm also way too cool for you,” which is true, and good on her for realizing that. Michael Cera, who has realized how fucked up he is in a lot of ways, deserves the also-fucked-up-in-a-lot-of-ways Mary Elizabeth Winstead. And so they set off to give their relationship another try. Game Over.

The basic plot, by its nature, is a bit repetitive, since it is, after all, a video game trapped in a movie's body. The only place it really starts to sag is after the staggering brilliance of the Brandon Routh battle. No movie, no matter how great, can help but dip a bit after the whole thing about veganism conferring superpowers, which I'm sorry, that's the funniest fucking thing like ever. Even that dip wasn't much of one. The sheer amount of energy this movie has overcomes all, including the imperfect scripting, the occasional partially- or not-fleshed out character, and the fact that it's tilting against the gigantic fucking windmill of being, at its core, an example of a different medium than the one it's presented as. As a member of the choir to whom Edgar Wright is preaching with Scott Pilgrim, I thoroughly enjoyed all the video game stuff, all the keenly observed details of nerd and hipster culture (the passwords to the club in the climactic sequence are “whatever” and a bored shrug), and goddammit, the journey Michael Cera has, gradually growing a legit pair of testicles by the third act, was satisfying. The way he confronts his mirror-image self, “Nega-Scott,” as the final “solo round” challenge in the “game” is particularly great: he sends Knives and Ramona away to confront his apparently evil doppelganger. So we cut to the girls waiting outside, and the doors open, and there's Michael Cera chatting away and making brunch plans with his dark side (“He's a pretty cool guy.”) Congratulations, son, you just became a real man. Well, kind of. In a very Michael Cera kind of way.

The music is goddamn fabulous. When fuzzy indie rock makes you want to get up and dance, you're dealing with some good fuzzy indie rock. The Sex Bob-Omb songs were all written by Beck and played by the actors, all of whom can kind of sort of play, just like their characters, giving them just the right blend of professional songcraft and scruffball enthusiasm that they need. It's the first soundtrack in at least a couple years that I said “I gotta own this,” and I said that about four bars into the first fucking song they play, during the opening credits.

Edgar Wright, in terms of raw filmmaking talent, has few peers. He's got great visual imagination, and increasingly, the control over his talent to realize that imagination. He also, whether from hanging out with Simon Pegg for all those years or on his own merits (almost certainly the latter), has a terrific sense of humor. And he has a nearly-perfect bead on the pop-cultural obsessions of nerds of his generation (which, being that he's only a couple years older than me, is basically mine). In Scott Pilgrim he's made a movie that will surely thrill nerds of almost my exact age for the rest of their lives. His one misstep, which isn't much of one, with this movie is that he is way too specific in who he's aiming to reach. It's certainly a noble gesture to say “I want to make a movie that will give nerds boners.” I certainly appreciate that. But Scott Pilgrim, a few outliers notwithstanding, is pretty much targeted directly at nerds 28-35. What, 27 and 36 year old nerds can't come to the party? It's not an artistic failing—I applaud anyone with the balls to make a $90 million movie this idiosyncratic—but it is the reason the picture flopped.

And, for that reason, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is one of those movies I'd be very cautious about recommending. As much as I, falling squarely within the picture's narrow target demographic, loved it, it appeals to a very specific part of me and it's always hard to tell who else has that shared very specific part. What I do know is that if I'm talking to someone and they mention this movie, and say “God, I loved it,” I know I'm talking to one of my people. And we will be very happy talking about how awesome this movie is, for far longer than is reasonable or tasteful. Because fuck you. We're nerds.