Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (PG-13)
Mike:
Mike: Tonight we are reviewing Scott Pilgrim vs the World
, the adaptation of the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. We follow 23 year old Scott, who likes video games and is in a band, and has a few adventures.
What did I think? I thought Scott Pilgrim was funny, action packed and creative as a big dog. This movie is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you are a teenager, or you like video games or comics or martial arts, you will probably like this. I’m not a teenager, but I love comics and video games. The dialogue in this movie is very clever and kept me laughing the entire movie. In fact, the movie has its own hipster vocabulary, which reminded me of Juno. I admit I had never even heard of this until I saw it was going to be a movie, so I don’t know if all the cleverness comes from the original comics or this is some kind of hybrid. Like Napoleon Dynamite, I think you will either love this movie or hate it. No real in between. That is not to say that this film has any striking resemblance to either Juno or Napoleon Dynamite.
One thing you have to buy into are the comic book style graphics throughout the movie. Yes we have Bang and Pow, but also description boxes that tell us Wikipedia style facts about the characters. This is not as cheesy as the old Batman TV series, but some people are going to hate it. I think it added to the comic sensibility of the film. Some scenes look like they are straight out of a video game. One scene is an homage to a scene from Seinfeld complete with Seinfeld theme music.
Michael Cera stars as Scott Pilgrim. Cera‘s character is certainly more confident than his usual role. The girls are all over this slacker. Scott starts out the movie dating a “high schooler”, a scandal to be sure, at least as far as his sister is concerned. Scott’s circle of friends includes his band mates, and his gay roommate. Plus there is the imminent return of his old flame, who has apparently hit the big time in the music scene. As things progress Scott falls for the exotic Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). You know she is exotic, because she is from the US, and this takes place in Canada. Also, she has blue hair.
Scott has to defeat Ramona’s 7 evil exes. In another tip to comics in general, one of the ex boyfriends is Superman and another is one of the Fantastic Four. Brandon Routh and Chris Evans. Rounding out the famous exes is Jason Schwartzman, not a superhero, but he has superhuman eyebrows and is an occasionally funny guy. It’s nice to see Anna Kendrick as Scott’s sister. She has a small but amusing part. It seems like she is everywhere lately, but I really don’t mind.
I like that two of the guys in his band Sex Bob-omb are Stephen Stills and Young Neil. If you don’t get it, don’t worry, your parents will.
I am already a fan of director Edgar Wright for his work on Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and the TV show Spaced. I am surprised he didn’t find a cameo for Simon Pegg.
What did I think? I think this is a great summer flick full of humor and action. I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars and a 4 for teen/action/comedy.
