Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, a movie about a bass guitarist, Scott Pilgrim comes from a band called "Sex-Bob-Omb." Scott Pilgrim is a dude that has no trouble getting a girlfriend, but the only problem was that he don't know how to get rid of them after. When Ramona Flowers skates into his heart, Scott finds out that she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army or a league of ex-boyfriends or Ramona likes to called it "Exes" who will stop at nothing to eradicate him from her list of suitors.
I have chosen two scenes that I was impressed from this movie to write about as some of the scenes intrigued me in the way that I perceive the movie as a gamer or a normal audience.
First scene: The fight between Scott Pilgrim vs. Matthew Patel (Evil Ex #1)
Scott arrived at the battle of the bands and sees Ramona. Also there, are Wallace (The gay roommate), Stacey (Scott's older sister), and Jimmy (Stacey's boyfriend). Wallace constantly hits on Jimmy from time to time for the entire night to hope that he could seduce Jimmy over. Out of the blue, Knives Chau (Scott's girlfriend before dating with Ramona Flowers) arrived too, making it extremely awkward for Scott as everyone put their attention on him. He evades the awkwardness by running back to the backstage.
Crash and the Boys, the opposite band playing against with The Sex-Bob-Omb band, played a great set which terrifies Stephen (Lead Singer of Sex-Bob-Omb) thinking that they could not follow up against their competition. They go up to perform and in the midst of performing their set, Matthew Patel crashes into the room and attacks Scott. It turned out into a big fight. Scott asks him why they are fighting. Matthew replies that he is one of the seven evil ex lovers of Ramona Flowers. And by the rule of video game world which they live in, Scott must defeat all seven evil ex lovers of Ramona Flowers if he wants to date with her. Scott then defeats Matthew with a single punch and bursts into a bunch of coins. Scott and Ramona leave on a bus where she explains that they are now dating but he must defeat all of her evil ex lovers. With Matthew down, six more to go.
The director successfully set up an interruption scene for the band, Sex-Bob-Omb's performance by having Matthew Patel to break in to the scene from the top of the roof yelling "MR.PILGRIM !!!" and introduces himself in the most dramatic way possible which is really not expected in a way. Having a different way to start a physical battle, the director requested Scott to react towards Matthew's incoming onslaught by saying with a clueless expression "what do i doooo ~~~" in a slow motion state while Wallace tells him to fight, thus causing Scott to defend himself quickly and reversed Matthew's attack by punching him in the face, leaving a shocking expression on Wallace, Stacey, and Ramona's face.
The director proceeds to bring more intensity to the fight scene to attract audience's attention by having Scott to fight Matthew like in the video games, where Scott flies up to the sky punching Matthew with an uppercut, delivering a beating on to his face relentlessly with a hit combo meter of 64, ending the hit combo with a sucker punch to the face, causing Matthew to fall to the ground with his face facing on the ground.
Another interesting factor from this scene is that whenever Scott and Matthew are having their fight, they would have what I would call a "pause" situation. The first pause situation happened during the fight is when Scott pause the fight between Matthew and himself, asking Matthew if they are fighting over Ramona Flowers. The second pause situation happened when Matthew punched twice, kicked Scott away and skipping back with a little dance number on his feet. Wallace proceeds to ask Matthew about his outfit choice, another random guy standing opposite Wallace asking Matthew if he is a pirate, then Scott repeated the random guy's question. Matthew tells them that being a pirate is the new trend nowadays.
The third pause situation is when Scott locks Matthew in and asks Ramona if she really went out with him, Ramona then tells the story of Matthew and her, causing Matthew to continue attack Scott with weird magical fireballs all of a sudden. The "pausing" effect catches the audience's attention or annoys the audience in the manner of focusing the reason why are they pausing the fight for, to realize it is something important or something that waste the time of your life.
Second scene: The fight between Ramona Flowers vs. Roxy Richter ( Evil Ex #4)
At the after party of the Clash at the Demonheads, Scott feels threatened by Ramona's past in the same time upset that all Ramona's evil exes keep trying to kill him. Roxy Richter suddenly appears out of nowhere and punches Scott in the back of his head. After Scott knowing Roxy is one of Ramona's evil exes, Roxy proceeds to attack him but is quickly grabbed by the foot by Ramona. Scott makes the conclusion that apparently Ramona went through a lesbian phase for a few weeks.
Ramona decides to defend Scott herself by pulling out a gigantic sledgehammer from her purse and fights Roxy. Roxy tells Ramona that according to the rules, it only counts if Scott fights her, but he declines to fight a girl. Ramona grabs him and uses his body to fight Roxy. They defeated Roxy successfully. Scott is still upset about having to face off with all these exes and is thinking of leaving Ramona. She gives him a list of the rest of the evil exes he has to defeat and leaves.
This scene gets on my interest in terms of their play-on-words, lame jokes, actors' movement, and weirdest way to die. To cite an example, Ramona stated that she and Roxy have that lesbian phase is just because she was a little "bi-curious", Roxy then retaliates by saying that she is "bi-furious" which basically there's no such relation but rhyming related words only, showing that their bisexually curious in a way and furious in a way. Roxy also said to Ramona "Back-off ! Has-bian !", the term "has-bian" relates to Ramona being a thing of a past to Roxy, further insults Ramona indirectly being a short term lesbian.
One funny lame joke comes right in as Roxy and Ramona are fighting. Wallace tells Ramona to kick Roxy in the balls which reference to guys' feeling after being kicked in the ball ( private area ) where it actually made me burst into laughter as a dude because I know how it feels like :( . Besides, the director really directed both actresses' movement well in terms of fighting each other by using dynamic movements like acrobatic, flexible moves along with the special CGI ( computer-generated imagery ) effects that enhances the weapon both Ramona and Roxy uses such as the giant sledgehammer and the sharp whip-blade belt.
In the end of the scene which I find it really weird is that Scott prods Roxy's back knee before being squashed by her, causing Roxy to seizure and having an "orgasmic" moment then bursts into a pile of coins. Ramona explains that when she and Roxy are making out, she found out that her back knee it's her sensitive spot, causing Scott to be disturbed about it. Having a death like that makes me wonder, what could the writers be thinking when putting this particular scene in.
In conclusion, I enjoyed the whole film thoroughly. The director gives a romantic spin-off with effects from video game to present the story with a bright and fresh perspective, along with some lighthearted jokes here and there. Effects like showing the words "craaash, kpok !, krow !, krak !, pow !, wack !, and sock !" while the characters are fighting hits the feel of nostalgia of reading back old comics. Jokes such as "I have to go pee due to boredom", "you made me swallow my gum ! That's going to be in my digestive tract for seven years !", and "he punched the highlights out of her hair ! (like literally, in the film they show the dude punch the highlights out of the Asian girl's hair)" had me laughing while I rolled in my seats! I have to say that the director of this film understands how teenagers or young adults think and knows how to put it on display on the screen.
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