Review

Review Date: 15-August-10
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

The comic-booky, video-gamey Scott Pilgrim vs. the World tells a love story about a 22-year-old dweeb who must fight to keep the girl of his dreams. Played by Michael Cera with a soft whine and doe-in-the-headlights gaze, Scott attracts girls with surprising ease but does not know how to keep them or let them go. He is in a rock band with an old flame who resents him and is dallying with a high-schooler (Ellen Wong) as a balm for having been dumped when he meets Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and falls precipitously head-over-heels. A mere boy could not hold the jaded and enigmatic Ramona for long. Some growing-up is in order, on top of which Scott is challenged by Ramona's "seven evil exes" who would rather see him dead than in possession of what they have lost.

Square and ancient as I am (at least in comparison with the hero and his target audience), I might have enjoyed Scott Pilgrim vs. the World if its expression and purpose weren't so uneven. The pacing threw me off: silly action sequences designed for today's strobe-image-addicted brains lead directly into scenes where nothing happens, or nothing beyond bad music and post-pubescent chatter. Director Edgar Wright appears to acknowledge this when Scott pauses to tie his shoe in the middle of a mad rush towards one of his assailants. This exaggerated change of pace earns a chuckle; the disjointedness of the entire movie does not. The gist of the love story needs a half-hour at most, so the smackdowns with Ramona's exes feel like filler, especially when they pile up at the end. Yet I think I would rather watch a series of these smackdowns in an unabashedly empty matinee than a movie which tries to out-comic the comics while tackling real-life "stuff," as Scott might say. How can anything deep be said when the mode of communication is so superficial? I know youth and romance and confusion and pop culture are supposed to go together, but they would go down easier in a smoother blend than this.

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