Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a veritable zeitgeist of pop-cultures mashing up against each other to deliver a romance unlike anything we’ll likely see for the next decade.

A great comic book is made up of a delicate blend of artwork and storyline that leaps off the page. With comic books adapted for the screen already having made said leap, they must do more than simply use the source material as a storyboard – a vibe must be captured, some kind of sync between the creator and the director must be demonstrated, an evocation of nostalgia for the reader of the comic must be stirred and ideally, those not familiar with the material will be swept away onto the bandwagon. Edgar Wright manages to hit all of the above-mentioned notes to create a Torontonian experience unlike any other, blending elements of comic books, video games, indie music, and most importantly, movies.

Chances are, you’ve met a guy kind of like Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera); a likeable  slacker who is lucky and clumsy with the ladies, and plays bass in a mediocre indie band. Scott is taking some time off from serious relationships by spending his time with a high school girl 6 years his junior when he meets the girl of his dreams, literally. Ramona Flowers (the completely unrecognizable Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a roller blading courier for Amazon.ca, recently transplanted from the United States, has been taking a subspace shortcut through Scott’s subconscious. When he finally meets her face to face, he is instantly smitten, and Ramona soon warms to his less awkward than usual Michael Cera-esque charms. There’s only one problem, Ramona’s got some skeletons in her closet. Skeletons covered in muscles, flesh and clothing with crouching tiger kung fu skills in the form of Ramona’s ex-boyfriends (and girlfriend, rrrrraow!). Turns out that if Scott wants to be with Ramona, he’ll have to defeat the League of Evil Exes…and maybe even clean up some of his own messes while he’s at it. Fortunately, Scott is the number one rated fighter in all of Ontario, so he can handle them. (It might not say so in the movie, but trust me, it’s in the books.) (Besides, the fights are just allegorical for the personal issues Scott and Ramona have to lay to rest before they can get together, so why does it matter whether this 98 pound weakling can nail a 64 hit mid-air combo?)

The first thing you’ll notice about this movie is the pre-credit Universal logo, rendered in glorious 8-bit like a Donkey King table top at your favourite seedy tavern. And with that, the tone is set for the next two hours. Just about everything hat unfolds on screen, from the bathroom breaks to the high scores in the aftermath of each skirmish is coloured with the same playful Nintendo brush. Edgar Wright, the mad scientist behind such genre benders/blenders as Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead has proven himself to be positively soaked in the language of cinema. And I don’t mean the techniques of Orson Welles or Jean-Luc Godard, I mean every pop-culture gem of the last 20 or even 30 years. He understands exactly how we glean information off the silver screen and he’s devised his own cinematic shorthand to deliver that information faster and funnier than anyone else. It’s the kind of style that comes in handy adapting a book that tends to express itself in images in feelings more than thoughts and words.

What is at the heart of its triumph, besides its innate sense of fun, is the tension/conflict/torsion between Toronto’s reality in which it is so cozily nested with locations like Lee’s Palace, Casa Loma and Pizza Pizza, and the fighting flights of fancy as Scott engages in fisticuffs that are one half Street Fighter 2 and one half Dance Dance Revolution. The mundane and the magical collide with each other to a deftly handled soundtrack as only a music lover like Wright could deliver.

With all of this bombast going on, it’s easy to forget that this really is a love story. And that is perhaps where I find this movie’s only shortcoming. Even if it’s Wright’s scrambled take on the “boy meets girl” story, there needed to be a tender heart to this take, and that is what Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is lacking. Everything is just too neon & plastic – and perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps Wright was trying to make a statement of the transitory nature of young modern love… or perhaps Wright’s directed a little too much bromance and not enough romance.

Question: Who was your favourite of Ramona’s evil exes?

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