Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

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Plot: Scott (Michael Cera) becomes Ramona's (Mary Elizabeth Windstead) new boyfriend, but her old boyfriends have formed a club to keep her single --out of revenge. Scott needs to defeat each one of them as in a video game. The battles are like a Street Fighter game or a role playing game. Scott's old girl friends are in the story too:  Knives (Ellen Wong), Kim (Allison Pill), and Envy (Brie Larson) each contribute subplots. Scott and Kim are in a band, and two of the boyfriend battles are musical showdowns.

Review:  Scott Pilgrim is a winner because it's good time and it's clever. The plot is a simple romance between Scott and Ramona, and its gimmick is video game battles and rock-n-roll.

Like a musical or a Power Rangers episode, the live action scenes stop for surrealistic, video-game action sequences. There are also dream sequences and magic doors.

The action scenes are at least as interesting as in regular action movies, probably because the idea is so novel.

Director Edgar Wright keeps the action moving with quick video editing. The visual story telling works especially well, and is a major part of why this film works. There are split screens  and captions styled like comic books.

Micheal Cera plays Scott Pilgrim in a low-key fashion, like "look at the weird stuff that keeps happening to me." It might have been better if Scott were more dynamic, but it would have been a different film. Similarly Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Ramona as troubled, but she could have been more quirky and mysterious.

On a serious note, every new person we meet has to deal with baggage of all our previous experiences and relationships. The film can be interpreted that way. Each ex represents some facet of Ramona's life and how she moved past it; perhaps the graphic novel expands on this. The movie is more about fun than life-lessons though.

This movie is an instant classic. I want to see it again, even though I am not a gamer.

Cast: Micheal Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Directed by: Edgar Wright; based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Rating: 3.5 flasks; perhaps it deserves only a 3.0, but I did like it a lot.


More: The video game action will catch all the attention, but the fast moving video style, and the interaction with gamer culture will be the lasting impact of Scott Pilgrim.
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