Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

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Swift shot:  It’s a movie, no, it’s a graphic novel, no, it’s a video game?  Wait, what the hell is this thing?  Really, who cares, you want a label – get some duct tape and stick it to your forehead – now put a Sharpie to it “Old”.  Yea, that’s you, so, anyway, like I was saying, this film, err whatever, was just awesome!  It has this low-class, Canadian – in your face – attitude.  It’s like Degrassi Junior High meets Crank!  The acting is solid, the direction is stellar, the fun is non-stop, and you’ll have a great time – I know the cast did.

Scott Pilgrim is dating a high-schooler!  Enter Player 1, Scott Pilgrim, whose latest antics unfold for the audience as he toys around with dating a seventeen year old Chinese girl, named . . . wait for it, Knives Chau!  Right away I knew I was going to freakin’ LOVE this film.  One of the major love interests is named after a weapon.  (I bet Action Flick Chick knows every female lead named after weapons, if not, she’ll have it up soon).  Ellen Wong owns the character, she’ll be Knives eternally, and she stole every scene with her commitment and impeccable comedic timing – to say nothing of her ability to kick major ass.

Anyway, Pilgrim is sorta dating this high-schooler, and she is a fire-ball of hyper active geekiness, but she is really young and his band, Sex Bob-Omb (1 -2 -3 -4) think maybe he is a bit of a creep for dating a high schooler.  Couple that with the fact that Pilgrim is some kind of dorky version of Cassanova or something, and you instantly find yourself suspended in disbelief. But, the whole film, err whatever, is like this, so it’s just fun.  It’s not as zany as Airplane, but it teeters on the edge of ridiculous.  Still, people were eating the shit up at the screening, laughing hysterically at the dry deliveries and odd subtitles, akin to Zombieland (Don’t worry, Madison, you don’t have to read this movie).

As mentioned above, Scott Pilgrim is in a band, Sex Bob-Omb (1-2-3-4), and he plays guitar, and they suck.  He lives with a gay dude who owns everything and basically lets Scott crash indefinetely, the gay dude is played by the better Culkin.  So, his life is pretty interesting, he’s a twenty-something slacker whose only ambition is to get over his broken heart, courtesy of one Envy Adams (Brie Larson) who used to play in the shitty band, Sex Bob-Omb (1-2-3-4) but found fame and left Scott and the others behind without a care.

So, Scott is pretty jaded about relationships, plus, he has a phobia about his hair.  But, when this American girl, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) appears at a friend’s party, Scott is instantly attracted to her.  She is different than the normal Toronto herd, she has purple hair, and oh yea, he saw her in a dream the night before – so he is pretty sure she is the one – or was it just bad gas?

As he works up the nerve to ask her out, using his coveted Pac-Man pick up line, he gets what he assumes is junk mail from someone claiming they must fight to the death now that Scott is dating Ramona. This is where shit starts to get all Nintendo 64!

Scott is ruthlessly pursued by Ramona’s evil exes throughout the film, err whatever, and he must vanquish each in unique, challenging ways.  Calling on skills he picked up from playing something that looks like Dance Dance Revolution with Ninjas (Hey, I am old, I don’t know what the hell that was) Scott must defeat each to truly start “dating” Ramona.  Ramona’s evilist (it’s not a word, neither is douchebaggery) ex, Gideon (Jason Schwartzman) has founded the League of Evil Exes to vanquish Scott, because he is a threat to the strange hold Gideon possesses over Ramona.

The cameos in this film were perfect, when you realize at one point, Scott has to defeat both Superman AND Human Torch, he’s boned!  Luckily he has an amazing cast of supporting characters and actors who really flesh out the film beautifully.  The gay dude, Young Neil, Linda Blair (no, she REALLY looks like the demon with that makeup – check it out), and two surprise un-credited cameos who swoop in to save the day.  The film’s pace is amazing, I never found myself bored or fidgety.  One nod to Bollywood caused me pause, but the rest of the audience wanted more curry with their Canada I guess – cause they loved it all!

You will love this film if you ever played Nintendo, if not, save yourself some tokens and stay home.  The only thing I didn’t like was, one, I am not a huge Cera fan, I prefer the poor man’s version, Eisenberg (Zombieland).  Two, Ramona and Scott were not my favorite characters, I think you know who I was pulling for the whole film, err whatever, give you a hint, her name rhymes with chives.  Yea, this is one of those rare films where the title character doesn’t interest me as much as his band of merry idiots and geeks galore. Still, the film is too much fun to get all worked up over crap like that, just see this one – and, hell, if you want to, see it twice,  just need to find that extra life!!