Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

(2010)

Dir: Edgar Wright

The answer to why you should always look behind you.

 

Confession time; my knowledge of video games is limited to playing Super Mario on the SNES with my sister when I was 8, Solid Snake, and the money-grabbing FIFA franchise. I ‘got’ about two references in Edgar Wright’s film, and one of those was to the stupendously brilliant sitcom Seinfeld. It also didn’t help that I was watching the film with the world’s biggest computer game nerd. For the first time in my life I felt like a loser for not knowing anything about video games. Oh the irony. I was utterly lost. But I was also utterly dazzled.

That’s the thing, the constant game references are just one part of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Sure it’s geeky; sure it’s marketed at a very niche audience, but so what? Edgar Wright has created a truly unique vision of youthful melodrama, so vibrant and colourful, with a script so witty and inventive, that it’s impossible not to fall in love with.

The cast are absolutely superb. Michael Cera is as charmingly hapless as ever as Scott and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is suitably sexy and kooky as the desirable Ramona Flowers. But it’s the cameos that really bring Wright’s feature to life. Each deadly ex-boyfriend which Scott must overcome to win Ramona’s heart brings something new. Chris Evans and Brandon Routh look like they’re having a blast, with Evans doing his best Christian Bale as the obnoxious Lucas Lee, while Routh, looking like he just fell out of Japanese Anime, shares some of the most hilarious exchanges with Scott.

A work of real energy, the only thing I can compare it to is 2010’S other comic book adaptation of teen trials, Kick Ass. Both are an injection of real originality into two stale genres. While I still think Matthew Vaughan’s ultra-violent flick has the edge, Scott Pilgrim deserves recognition as one of the best films of 2010, and something original in the creaking world of cinema.

*** ¾ / *****

 

Time for an educated opinion...

 

Since directing the TV show Spaced, Edgar Wright has always populated his movies with little references to the nerdy side of life and the comic book series of Scott Pilgrim, which is suitably heaving under the weight of all those game references, makes Edgar Wright the perfect guy to direct this.

The prejudice that we feel running throughout all levels of society towards those people who play computer games is of course completely unfounded and terribly unfair. So it’s with great relief that we have finally got a film which runs the unpopularity gauntlet by sticking its flag firmly on the other side of the river, away from the cultural mainstream.

If you don’t get the game references, don’t worry. The entertainment is not derived from picking up on those things. They are really just the icing on the cake. Scott Pilgrim manages to be entertaining with its moments of cartoon violence, doses of surreal humour and kung fu fight scenes. The execution of all these is especially fresh, which makes for a totally unique viewing experience. The resultant cornucopia of unusual genres has only one close relative – not Kick Ass but Kung Fu Hustle.

The game references might seem excessive but they never break you out of the picture, nor diminish your enjoyment of it. The story continues along its path to a conclusion I actually cared about. The appearance of the Nega Scott near to the end is a great reference to Link’s battle with his dark alter ego in The Ocarina of Time.

This use of suddenly knocking the story along a completely tangential path is a technique that has been borrowed by virtually all modern comedy. The persistence of it in Scott Pilgrim does however make perfect sense. Scott is experiencing life through the 16bit sounds and pictures of his childhood. The film starts out relatively sane and quite rapidly becomes a kaleidoscope of images that could be taken out of any video game, or indeed out of any comic book. The way Scott’s rivals explode into a vibrant cascade of gold coins makes sense in the world that this film does such an excellent job of setting up. Thus the moments of tangential comedy do not detract from the flow of the main story. The merits of this film lie not in its reverence for the geeky side of things. The film succeeds with the strength of its story, its originality and in its near perfect blending of genres.

**** ¼ / *****

Perpetually startled prepubescent man-child tries to woo a girl with multi-coloured hair. Plot complexity Rating – 0. Overall Awesomeness Rating – 10.