Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World

I've become a big Edgar Wright fan over the past several years, though I've been late to the party for all of his films excepting BABY DRIVER, which I eagerly caught at the cinema.  The "Cornetto" trilogy (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ, and THE WORLD'S END) didn't tantalize me with their trailers, or even the buzz to follow.  Not right away.  When I finally indulged them I became an instant fan.  Wright is a Brit who knows how to do funny within specific genres not always known for comedy.  This continues with 2010's SCOTT PILGRIM VERSUS THE WORLD, a film based on a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley.  Oh, what continues? My initial apathy toward the film, my later delightful discovery/wondering why the hell I waited so long to see it (eight years), and that Wright takes a film that is essentially a living video game based on a comic and makes it hilarious.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is your typical twenty-something slacker.  He's a bassist for a terrible rock band, still nursing a broken heart one year after a bitter break up, and roommates with a caustic homosexual named Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin).  He's also dating an enthusiastic but ditzy seventeen year old Asian girl named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong).  But that relationship goes out the window when Scott meets Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), an alluring and intriguing transplant who left NYC and apparently a rather eventful and toxic existence.

As Scott will learn, part of that involved seven evil exes, all of whom he has to battle in order to date his new Dream Girl.  Even though the Toronto locations make everything look reasonably terrestrial, we are still in a video game, and Scott, a bit of a nebbish, still handily defeats his opponents, with a fountain of coins and onscreen points after each dispatch.  Not always with might, mind you.  Scott calls upon his wits to best an obnoxious movie star and an even more obnoxious rock star (who stole that one year ago girlfriend). in creative fashions.   The confrontations with each ex gets crazier and more destructive (this is a production designer's wet dream), culminating with the emergence of Gideon (Jason Schwartzman), the most obnoxious of all.  But does Ramona still have feelings for him?

Wright somehow makes this material, clearly aimed at those in their twenties and younger, work even for older crusts like myself who may not regularly devour mangas.   The film is alive with color, energy, and imagination in ways few movies are, a delirious marriage of creative direction and amazing editing (by Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss).  Each character is equally vivid and everyone gets at least one very funny line.  Cera is endearingly, though sometimes annoyingly, dorky and Schwartzman is simply a riot. Culkin, too.  The ladies flesh out their roles with sass and heart.  While everyone is pretty one note in this story (adapted by Wright and Michael Bacall), they always transcend mere computer graphics. 

And it's often very funny.  Sometimes gut bustingly so, even if you're over twenty five.  There are a few too silly moments (why the Seinfeld theme during that one scene?), and the movie is far too long (maybe two or three exes would've been enough?) but overall SCOTT PILGRIM VERSUS THE WORLD is a gas.  Possibly even groundbreaking in some way.