Dating is hard. You have to deal with the awkward “getting to know you” moments, the missteps in judgements because you haven’t completed the “getting to know you moments,” and the anxiety that you’re not doing enough to impress your new love interest. If you successfully navigate the early-relationship waters, you still have to worry whether you measure up to all the boyfriends that have come before you. Imagine if you had to do all that…and said exes started attacking you in gamer-style fights. Such is the life of the titular hero in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which, while not necessarily one of the best movies of the summer, is without a doubt one of the most entertaining.
Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) is your typical post-adolescent adolescent. He lives across the street from the house he grew up in, plays in an untalented by inexplicably well-liked band, and dates high schoolers. Then the girl of his dreams (literally…he dreamt her up right before he met her) shows up at a party. Their first date shows promise for Pilgrim, but soon after they start dating, he learns that, in order to keep her, he has to defeat her “seven evil exes,” former boyfriends (and a girlfriend) who come at Pilgrim like he’s an avatar in some Street Fightet/Tekken/Marvel vs. Capcom mashup. As he defeats them, he learns everything they were – handsome, talented, confident – that he isn’t.
It’s difficult to categorize Scott Pilgrim, because, while it feels like a video game, it is based on a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley. But it almost doesn’t matter where the source material lies; the result is as good as most comic book movies and better than almost all video game movies, because it embraces both genres instead of trying to be darker or more interesting. It’s colorful, quick, and kitschy, and not in a bad way at all. The jokes, both from the evil exes and from Pilgrim’s friends (Kieran Culkin as his gay roommate and
Anna Kendrick as his sister, particularly), come a mile a minute and hit the mark every time.
The ending of the movie is a little clunky, and I’m told that the final fight scene, while played brilliantly by Cera and Jason Schwartzman, who is the head of both the evil exes and the record label Pilgrim’s band wants to sign with, loses some of the meaning it has in the books. But the film’s visual style, attitude, and overall entertainment factor hide a lot of sins, and what you’re left with is an entirely worthwhile 2 hours in the theater.
**** of 5