Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have both had their crack at solo projects, and now it is the turn of the man behind the camera to branch out on his own. Edgar Wright is the director of Pegg-Frost hits Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuss and the TV series Spaced, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World marks his first feature without the comedy duo.
Scott Pilgrim (go-to geek Michael Cera) is a 22-year old slacker. He plays bass for his band “Sex BoB-omb”, hardly ever cuts his hair and is dating a high school girl in an attempt to get over his ex, who dumped him and moved on to bigger and better things. When Ramona Flowers (a colourful Mary Elizabeth Winstead) rollerblades into his life, he realises that she is the girl of his dreams; unfortunately, he must defeat her seven evil exes before he can win her heart.
Scott Pilgrim isn’t just based on a graphic novel; it’s filmed like one too. The first hour or so passes in a blur of split screens, info boxes and captions seemingly for no reason other than ‘coz it looks cool. But that’s part of the film’s charm: it looks cool. It is stylish, colourful and entirely original. Anyone familiar with Wright’s previous work (Spaced in particular) can’t have failed to notice his love of video games, and this comes across clearly in Scott Pilgrim: characters take each other on Tekken style, giant Donkey Kong hammers appear from nowhere, opponents explode into a shower of coins (a nice nod to the old arcade games) and - in a particularly eye-popping scene – monsters are summoned in a Guitar Hero play-off. With so many distractions, there is always the risk that plot and characters will get lost in the muddle. Fortunately, this is not the case: the script is just as dazzling as the visuals. The film is also aided by a brilliant cast: in particular, Chris Evans and Brandon Routh (both comic-book movie veterans) as an ego-centric action star and a vegan rock-god, and Kieran Culkin as Scott’s gay housemate.
Scott Pilgrim is definitely a film for the younger generation, many of whom may recognise themselves in the main characters. It is fast, funny and inventive, and still manages to convey a message about the technology-based society we live in today. It may lack the heart of Shaun of the Dead, but it looks like Wright has another cult hit on his hands. In short, seven levels of awesomeness!
CMD
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