Saturday, September 4, 2010

You Just Drank Half & Half, Baby

EP·IC adj
very imposing or impressive;
surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale)

Add heartfelt, hilarious and dazzling to this and you've got
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.
It's coming up on my third viewing of the "epic of epic epicness" that is Scott Pilgrim and before I obtain a Sex-Bob-Omb* t-shirt, finish reading all the comics and rape weheartit.com for hipster screencaps, I thought I'd GO AHEAD AND MENTION MY NEW OBSESSION HERE.
But unlike my other love letters to such cultural easter eggs, this one isn't going to look like an overexcited outpouring of mess, comparable to a retarded child eating cornflakes.
Instead, I'll just briefly 'upchuck' the main segments of this..cinematic orange. Yeah.
(a) The Graphics: It's fueled by those simply perfect 90s nintendo graphics which I have been known to jizz at in the past. The 8-bit Sega mega Universal logo at the beginning set the tone for everything to come and like Bernard Cumberbatch's face, although they shouldn't work on the big screen, they really really do. Its amazing that this is the first video-game-esque adaption that's worked before. Interestingly the entire look was i-n-s-a-n-e-l-y loyal to the original volumes, I mean literally down to the exact architecture, layouts, sequences & even CLOTHES. The feel is the same too and it helps that each segway is punctuated with blocks of the comic book text and more onomatopoeias than TG4 Batman cartoons.
(b) The Fight Scenes: In the same way that characters break into song without explanation in musicals, Scott battles Evil Exes at parties or theatres without any shock-factors or reprecussions. Why? Because why the hell not? After being 'defeated', the opponents burst into gold coins (geddit?), everyone around them just carries on talking. And honestly, speaking as a non-action fan, these fight scenes are CLESS. Besides being choreographed to a T for Teen, they have this funny juxtaposition of whimsy with very 90's, very Canadian naturalism. Bass battle? Check. Smoke lesbian? Check. Metaphorical swords? Check. Bliss.
(c) (i) The Music: Basically this soundtrack had me at hello, as the first shout of WE ARE SEX-BOB-OMB! ONE TWO THREE FOUR! streams out via a flickering assault of neon-bright, acid-scrawled lightning bolts. And throughout the whole film, there are snatches of the lullaby from Zelda, the bass line from Final Fantasy & Beck music to "make you feel sad and think about death and stuff!".
(ii) ALSO THE WAY MICHEAL CERA PLAYS BASS. I mean..BOIZ like.
After stalking Comic-Con interviews and Empire's tiny info-bites, this film was pretty much everything it was built up to be. Overall it's like the lovechild of Sin City, Kick-Ass and 500 Days Of Summer. And maybe a few strands of Inception in there too.

* Btdubs, a bob-omb is..are? one of the badguys from Super Mario.






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