Loose Gravel's Kinda Bad Ass Blog

The intro sequence for Marvel Studios films is fantastic. It’s a flash of comic book panels that promises excitement and adventure. It was obviously designed by a comic book nerd with high hopes for how an adaptation of a beloved character should look and feel. It is designed so that a good comic book nerd falls in love with the film he or she is about to see even before the film begins. Then the shitshow starts: There’s a slow intro and some glimpses of a comic book hero as envisioned through the eyes of Shitty Hollywood and then some goddamned crappy CGI. Repeat.

Not only is the point that Spiderman et al. weren’t done properly, but now Shitty Hollywood can’t shove comic adaptations down our throats fast enough. Shitty Hollywood continues to trip on its own cock in an effort to bang out as many superhero films as possible. I hope you’re ready for Hawkeye! Hey, Shitty Hollywood, no one gives a fuck about Hawkeye. He’s a shitty superhero. Frankly, we barely care about Thor. If we don’t give a shit about The Incredible Hulk (and we don’t), you need to take a step back behind the yellow line and reassess your bullshit.

Good news Nerds: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is the movie that Marvel Studios’ intro sequence meant to promise you. It’s the film that the good Nerds have been waiting for.

Ripped from the comic book pages of brilliant source material from Bryan Lee O’Malley, Edgar Wright has constructed the single film that fills the hole in the hearts of avid Nerds that Marvel Studios, DC Entertainment Inc. (Warner Bros.), and the rest of Shitty Hollywood has dug for the last 30 years.

Part comic book adaptation, part video game-turned-movie extravaganza SPVTW is so laugh out loud funny and action packed that if the genres it took from could harness back some of those elements they would be better for it. Michael Cera is perfectly cast in a role one might hope him to play. Still he manages to surprise by his ability to beat ass. Side note: for all the SFX in this film we shouldn’t have to watch him run. He kicks and punches like an all-star. He runs like a girl. Mary Elizabeth Winstead cashes in her real-life hotness for comic book punk-hotness with a tortured psyche. It pays dividends. Kieran Culkin is Pilgrim’s gay roommate. It’s a subtle fabulousness with consistently hilarious turns (that perhaps offers answers to anyone who wonders what happened to Steve Martin’s other kid from Father of the Bride?). And that Asian chick that plays Knives Chau? Yes.

When a phone rings and, “brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring,” rolls across the screen the film is a comic book. When Scott Pilgrim is fighting an evil ex and the screen shows them face-to-face with an N64 Mortal Kombat-style, “VS” between them, the film is a video game. When Scott Pilgrim dives out a window to avoid an uncomfortable situation, it is classic slapstick comedy. This film is the mecca of Nerdom. It’s as though the mothership dropped this movie off for us.

Despite heavy promotion by SPVTW, The Expendables killed at the box office last weekend. That’s strange since that movie was first released in 1984 and called, Every Action Movie That Came Out In The 80s. Fuck The Expendables. Go see SPVTW in the theatres.

Shitty Hollywood and the other comic book studio assholes could do themselves a gigantic favor by stealing this style. So could the legions of dickheads who have failed everytime they’ve tried to adapt a video game for film. They just don’t get it. But Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World does.

5/5

(Note: Apologies to The Dark Knight. You are excluded from inclusion.)

(For the Marvel Studios Intro: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIKhiZm_nhs. To see it skip to :24. Interesting aside: SPVTW is distributed by Universal but the intro logo in the film is one million times cooler than is shown in the link.)