dibididibidi SIBLING PIRACY
Random takes on our recent pirate loot.

Yo Chris. 

(As usual, let me begin with a spoiler.)

During a pivotal juncture of “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”, the spurned Knives Chau turns to our eponymous anti- hero (i.e. the douchebag who has dumped her earlier on in this tale) and proclaims simply “I’m too cool for you, anyway.” There is no trace of bitterness in her words. This is just a girl, realizing perhaps for the very first time in her life just how awesome she really is.

I swear, it took every ounce of self-control I had to NOT gradually rise from my chair and commence into a slow, solemn clap whilst hollering, “You go, AZN girl! Pwn that skinny hipster!” during this golden moment, but I managed. I managed.

Slow-clap inducing moment aside, I didn’t really get the movie, Chris. I just wanted to begin on a positive note. 

 At first, I couldn’t really put my finger on the exact reason why I didn’t warm up to the film as much as I thought I would. Then finally, the reason occurred to me: it had something to do with Knives Chau’s Declaration of Independence. Her resolute “I‘m too cool for you anyway” was more than just an isolated moment of revelatory self-worth / sweet retribution from the jilted 17 year old:  it was the freaking thesis statement of the entire film.  

I think that what I’m saying is that “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” made me feel embarrassingly uncool. I’ll even go as far as to say that it set out to pwn me (and the rest of the world who cannot visually process more than 100 frames per second). Thirty minutes into this frenetic pastiche of pop culture/video game references, visual puns, whip-smart comebacks mouthed by White Anglo-Saxon Urban Outfitted Hipsters (WASUOH is the new WASP), and a pulsating OST that pays tribute to the nostalgic blippety-blips of our Family Computer Games, I was winded. By the end of the movie I had  gained a newfound sense of empathy for our mother and how she manages to stage whisper, “ANO RAW?!??!” (much to our irritation) every 5 minutes during any movie we watch together. And it also took every ounce of self-control left in my exhausted state to NOT raise my hands in the air and admit,

“Give me prolonged periods of silence and shots of the wide, restless ocean and its foamy waves lapping against the shore! 

Give me Merchant Ivory and British accents and a pre-Bellatrix Lestrange Bonham Carter!

Give me heroines who weep in the rain!

I CONCEDE. MY SLOW BRAIN IS TOO OLD FOR THIS.”, but again, I managed, Chris. I managed. Like our intrepid hero, I charged on. And that, I think, is a feat. 

I do have other bones to pick with Edgar Wright’s distillation of Bryan O’Malley’s 6 part Pilgrim-verse, though. Take, for instance, the lack of three dimensional and endearing characters. Pilgrim himself is shallow and emotionally-stunted (I can hear your protests of “But he’s supposed to be that way, stupid! “, loyal fans. Calm down, for heaven’s sake.)—but that I can take.

 What is ultimately disappointing is the underwriting/characterization of the fickle minded, doe-eyed Ramona Flowers, who is portrayed as nothing more than The Enigmatic Hottie. We know that she is impulsive and a bit of a commitment phobe and she likes to mix things up, because

a. she has 7 Evil Exes.

b. like the infinitely more complex Clementine Kruczynski, she changes her hair color more often than she changes lovahz.

and

c. she has a lot of different tea flavors in her pantry.

We also know that she likes rollerblading and has dabbled in lesbianism. Aside from that, zilch.

Why are we supposed to be enamored with this caricature of a character, this Clementine-lite, with her bored stare and the irritatingly flat, lazy cadence of her voice? I don’t know, other than the fact that well, she is a hottie. But on the other hand, Scott Pilgrim is structured like a video game, and  R. Flowers basically fits the Video Heroine archetype. We don’t really know why heroes like Kage and Mario risk death and go through fire-breathing dragons and star wielding ninjas and evil bosses to save the likes of pixelized Enigmatic Hotties, Princess Kiri and Princess Peach, but we follow them on their journey, hoping for some kind of gratification in the end.

The only gratification my poor, tired brain got was when the moment the credits finally rolled, I switched off the DVD, curled into my bed and dreamt of Mr. Darcy.  Give me those British accents any day, dude.