Boy meets girl, girl falls in love with boy, boy falls in love with different girl, boy has to fight different girl's seven evil exes. We've all been there, haven't we?
Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a spastic, reference a minute, geek-culture epic of a film. This is the kind of film that knows its audience and not only how to identify with them but the generation they came from. In this case it's the Gen X geek crowd who grew up with 8 bit games, anime (shonen in particular: think Dragon Ball Z), and comics. Adapted from Brian Lee O'Malley's indie comic series, Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright took something that could of been another insufferable indie film and turned it into a refershingly original gem of a film not seen since Inception.
Set in Toronto, the film follows the protagonist Scott Pilgrim: a lecherous indie-rocker slacker who uses his immense charms to woo girls and gain favors from his friends such as rooming and sharing a mattress with his cool gay roommate Willam Wallace (Kieran Culkin...yes, Culkin). He's part of a band called the Sex Bob-oms (one in a series of many 8-bit references) with guitarist Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) and drummer ex-girlfriend Kim Pine (Alison Pill). While dating the unhinged and obsessed high schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), he meets and falls in love with mind-portal hopping delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Before he can have Ramona as his own, however, Scott must fight her seven evil exes (6 dudes and 1 girl) in a grand Street Fighter-Final Fight-Rock Band videogame mashup slugfest. What follows is a trippy, geeky trip down the rabbit hole as ever conceivable reference to 90's anime, comics, and videogames are being played a mile a minute...yet the film still tells a good story with very compelling characters.
Special props must go to Edgar Wright as this is his film: not Serra's or even O'Malley's. I had the same problem with Serra in the lead role as everyone else did: I just couldn't see him play an action hero right. He's a typecast awkward indie-teen and has played that role in he's been in. I every single film he's been in. I still to this day see him as Evan from Superbad or Paulie from Juno. Yet, despite that, it's Wright and not Serra who makes it work. Serra's indie cred just works for Scott's character as...well, an akward indie twentysomething. The rest of the characters are delightfully good in their respective roles: special props to Jason Schwartzman in playing the truly Magnificent Bastard that is Gideon Gordon Graves (666, baby). Winstead has just the right amount of aloofness to make Ramona work as a standoffish yet lonely ninja babe. Brandon Routh is an incredibly large ham and plays a convincing vegan Sayan thru #3 Todd Ingram. Pretty much every role in this film works and it's more of a testament to Wright as a skilled caster as opposed to the individual actors themselves: a bunch of scraps fashioned into a quilt.
I'm going to be the first to call it out: Scott Pilgrim is a giant Ginax geek-out. I'm serious: Scott's a skittish young man (Naouta-FLCL) who's dating Knives (Mamimi-FLCL) who's an unhinged, obsessed schoolgirl. He falls in love with the older, wild-haired pixie girl Ramona (Haruko-FLCL) who hops thru head-portals, has an affinity for goggles, and kicks all kinds of ass. And Gordon? Well, that lecherous, womanizing and conniving douchebag is none other than Gendo-Freaking-Ikari from Evangellion. I dare anybody to prove me wrong.
If there's any flaws in the movie, it's the first half-hour. In establishing the characters the film has to be slow, but drags on at about the thirty minute mark. Thankfully it's broken in by Mathew Patell (Satya Bhabha) crashing thru the roof to challenge Scott; breaking the monotony of the first half-hour. It picks up the pace and speeds up after that, but the speed change will catch you off guard initially. Stick thru the slow parts, trust me.
All in all, Scott Pilgrim is an enjoyable and incredibly original geek mash-up romp of a film that exhudes X-Gen geekdom and revels in it. This is a generational film, and it might not appeal to its intended audience (older than 18, younger than 30). For those in that age group, watch it now. Scott Pilgrim is without a doubt the Ferris Bueller of our generation: the guy who exemplifies the good, bad, and just plain awesome of our generation.
Final Verdict: A. If you're a self-respecting geek, see it now. Scott Pilgrim is the Ferris Bueller's Day Off of our generation.
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