Scott Pilgrim vs the World: Pilgrims’ progress

Those of you who love watching other people play videogames will be thrilled by Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Those of you who don’t might, by the end of the movie, acquire an idea of the idle, passive fascination of the same.

Edgar Wright who’s directed cult favourites Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, translates Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series to the big screen but despite — or perhaps because of — the editing razzle-dazzle, the spliced screens and the visual effects, the videogame referenced, comic book-based world of Scott Pilgrim feels hopelessly flat and insular.

Scott Pilgrim is the typical vacillating, slacker which the nerdy Micheal Cera — whose charisma is underscored by his high-pitched voice and lack of a jaw — seems doomed to play for the rest of his acting career. A bassist for the mediocre punk band The Sex Bob-ombs and an unlikely lady-killer, Scott is recovering from a big break up by dating a high school girl Knives (Ellen Wong) amidst disapproval from his big sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick), band-mates (Alison Pill, Mark Webber and Johnny Simmons) and roomie (Kieran Culkin). For a regular, passive, non-confrontational kind of guy, Scott’s life is surprisingly full of drama. But things really start to heat up when Scott spots the girl of his dreams, the lovely, inscrutable Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a punk rock chick with pink hair — well, at least initially, because Ramona changes her hair colour every week-and-a-half. To win the blasé Ramona, Scott must battle her seven evil exes — not ex-boyfriends, as Scott ingenuously keeps referring to them until he has to fight Roxy who calls Ramona a “has-bian”.

What ensues is Mortal Kombat-style battles with a string of colourful exes starting with the Bollywood-inspired Matthew Patel who Ramona went out with in seventh grade. “Why do I have to fight you?” asks a genuinely bewildered Scott, a question that will resonate with the uninitiated viewer. Still there are laughs a-plenty even for those who are unlikely to get the in-jokes or be tickled by the humour which banks on weirdness alone. The exes, when vanquished, don’t die, they simply vanish as silver coins rain down and Scott racks up points, 1-ups . . . even another Life.  But the battles are all the same joke, repeated incessantly through the movie, and after the first few exes, you stop caring for what are essentially cardboard cut outs, or, in this case, video-game characters — colourful enough, but never truly engaging. There is never much of a fight, the fun is in the exaggeration, the pop ups, the Batman series style text that floats on the screen accompanying punches(Pow), doorbells (Riiiiing), and the sound of bass (DDDDDDD). Scott’s real battle, the break up with Knives, is lost in that noise.

Compared to the magnificently entertaining Kick Ass, which, with its comic book obsession, ran along similar lines, Scott Pilgrim seems gratuitous, and manages to stir in the viewer a blasé reaction, reflective of the attitude of its protagonists.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2010.