Ten Statements About....SCOTT PILGRIM VERSUS THE WORLD (2010)

Beware Michael Sera's video-game-inspired power!

“Next time, we don't date the girl with eleven evil ex-boyfriends."
“It's seven."
“Oh, well, that's not that bad.”

1) This film has a great, well, texture.  The way director Edgar Wright’s storytelling approximates a video game creates something unique even among comic book movies--namely a movie that looks like a comic book contemporary to the making of this film.  The introductory panels for each character, the way papery graphic sound effects rise from actual sounds, the combat titles, the transitions all help to build the world Wright wants us to dwell in.

2) I know some people didn’t care for Michael Cera, but I think the film needed him as Pilgrim.  Sera has just the right level of insincerity in his performance that it works.  Through his eyes, we understand that Scott is a big dick, which is essential for us to buy into the journey he goes through.

3) You know, I think Elizabeth Winstead is stunning, but her Ramona is, well, a bit of a dick as well, and has less screentime to show any change she may have gone through.  I think that the film needed to give her that to justify the ending it came up with (an ending that was made up before the last issue of the comic came out).

There are so many jokes I could make, but none of them would
paint me in a good light...

4) But what the film really needs to do is more clearly justify and define the story arc for Ellen Wong’s Knives Cho.  Given how she’s treated by Scott in the first act and gets all stalker-y in the second, the argument the film seems to make for her in the third seems so disjointed and strange--and it leads to a denoument at (literally) the film’s end that seems to dispute that third act entirely.  That Wong almost makes it work is a credit to her as an actress.

5) Can I admit to having a slight crush on Allison Pill’s Kim Pine?  Maybe it’s the way she delivers each line with a sort of controlled fury, but she seems to draw the eye with each scene she’s in.

6) One of the things that makes this film work besides its unique look is how much fun so many of these actors, especially those that play Ramona’s seven evil ex’s.  I’m a big believer in the principle that if the people involved are having fun (without breaking the third wall), then that fun will rub off on the viewer, and it works here.

Yeah, it's a Michael Sera film...but don't fight this film's
unique, sugar-coated charms.

7) I really respect the fact that Wright establishes the video game motif of his world extremely quickly, and then sticks to the the rules inherent in such a background.  Hell, the resolution of the third act works only if we buy into his world-as-video-game conceit...and it’s to his credit that the big twist is set up very clearly, yet we might not figure out what went down right away.

8) Every time I see Brandon Routh, I am convinced he needs a bigger career.  His telekinetic (apparently in the world of Scott Pilgrim, veganism gives you super powers) Todd Ingram is one of the highlights of the film, and he makes the most of his screentime.  And apparently Thomas Jane gets to drag him off for violation of the Vegan Code.  And speaking of the Vegan Police....

9)  I do appreciate how, after Wright gives us the prerequisite hyper-kinetic fight scene (because, you know, video game and all), Scott ends up using his head and, in one memorable moment, his musical skills to triumph over each of the exes.  It shows that there are qualities that could raise Scott above his dickishness, and it makes that ultimate rise above his flaws work in that third act.

10) Bless this movie for being shot in Toronto and...being set in Toronto.  Hell, one of the major reasons Ramona becomes an object of desire for desire for Scott is because she’s from the States and, as such, is ‘exotic.’

Overall...this is one of those films, like Speed Racer and Josie And The Pussycats, that will get the following it deserves with distance.  Wright creates a world, sticks to it, and is unafraid to give us an unsympathetic lead (who becomes sympathetic through what he learns from the events of the film), and presents a unique moviegoing experience.  While the ending is a little sour, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a very good film.

Ten Statements About....DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT (2011)

Brandon Routh looks closely for a
film franchise worthy of his talent.

1) Brandon Routh deserves a better career. He is certainly a talented actor with a smooth, laid back charisma. He is definitely someone who could carry an action franchise. It saddens that this, the second attempt to give him said franchise, is in its ways as much a failure as Superman Returns.
 

2) Director Kevin Munroe was very smart in casting Sam Huntington as his sidekick Marcus. Since Huntington played Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns, there's already a familiarity between the two actors that sells you on the relationship between the two characters. And Huntington's got a good sense of timing that almost makes his generally comedic character work. However....

3) The biggest problem with this film? It goes far too much for the comedy and not enough for the horror. The imbalance makes of the film's tone blunts the serious aspects and makes the grossness of the comedy (He's a zombie, so he eats worms! Get it? Get it?) more funny weird than funny ha-ha. Compare the way the humor is handled here to the previous film based on Sclavi's comics, Cemetery Man, and you realize how off it is.

"WOOF!  I Mean, Grrrrrrr...I's a werewolf..."

4) Another problem? We never get the sense that these monsters are different from us. The script by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer humanizes these undead so much that there's no reason for most of them to be undead. The few supernatural characters who seem otherworldly--like Peter Stormare's Gabriel--do so not because of hte script, but because of the actor's choices in portraying them. Take away Taye Diggs' pointy teeth or Kurt Angle's hairpiece...and their characters are virtually unchanged.

5) Maybe it's because Anita Briem is Icelandic and can't hide her accent worth a damn, but we never buy her as what she's supposed to be--which makes the big twist in the third act not work at all.

6) I give Donnelly and Oppenheimer credit for trying to create a real world in this film, a sense of community amongst the various undead factions in New Orleans. Of course, every time they go for the easy gag (the literal 'body shop'; the zombie support group), it undermines all the mythology they're trying to build.

7) It's time to move away from the bumpy-forehead vampire look. Every time one of these 'TrueBloods' tries to attack Briem's Elizabeth, I keep expecting Buffy and the Scoobies to show up.

8) The whole 'Heart of Belial' thing is so submerged during the first two acts that when it takes over as the main macguffin, it shatters the forward momentum. That this is obviously brought in so that there's a big-ass special effects sequence in Act Three only sours the film all the more. If the film didn't lose faith on the idea of a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque gang war, or on the concept of a conspiracy by monster hunters to get the supernatural factions to destroy each other, it would have been a stronger film. And speaking of that big-ass special effects sequence...

"I'm Brandon Routh...and THIS--THIS IS MY BOOM STICK!"

9) The big monster just doesn't work--partially because the design is so derivative of other designs, and partially because the sequence just keeps adding new crap on (Okay, you don't like the big scary face? How about we add spikes all over? No? How about wing. Wings not working for you? How about we make those wings, like, eighty feet long?).

10) The script does play fair in planting the key to destroying the big monster--but that information is buried in a scene that seems more about an old vampire urging Dylan to get laid, and as such, the resolution of plot comes off as confusing. It doesn't help that our hero does pretty much nothing to hasten this conclusion, and just watches as it all falls apart.

Overall...a mediocre bid at a franchise that wastes Brandon Routh's genuine charm as a movie star. Although, I suspect watching this may give people a better appreciation of Constantine, which is not good, but isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is.

I saw this as the AMC Loew's 19th Street East...and I was surprised that we were only given three trailers--another showing of the original Green Lantern iteration, one for Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, which looks intriguing not the least because it's got Guillermo del Toro's fingers on it, and one for Skateland, which I swore I skipped when it was called Adventureland.