Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Movie Information
Scott Pilgrim has never had a problem getting a girlfriend. It's getting rid of them that proves difficult. From the girl who kicked his heart's ass - and now is back in town - to the teenage distraction he's trying to shake when Ramona rollerblades into his world, love hasn't been easy. He soon discovers, however, his new crush has the most unusual baggage of all: a nefarious league of exes control her love life and will do whatever it takes to eliminate him as a suitor.
Rated: [M]
Cinema Release: 12 Aug 2010
Director: Edgar Wright
Running Time: 112 mins
Stars: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin
Movie Review
ON THE list of insanely creative and undeniably influential movies of 2010, you will now find three entries.
Casually, yet oh so emphatically, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World joins Kick-Ass and Inception in taking mainstream cinema to another level.
Like Kick-Ass, this astonishing, exhilarating and funny movie has been fired directly from the world of comic books at the big screen with genre-smashing panache.
Like Inception, the narrative style deployed by Scott Pilgrim re-routes conventional trains of thought in unconventional directions aplenty.
That, however, is where any similarities end, for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is all originality, all the way.
The movie begins at a blinding storytelling speed which will, quite incredibly, be sustained throughout. Inside a digitally manipulated blizzard of meet 'n' greets, flashbacks, verbal zingers, audio glitches and visual scrawls, we can just make out the figure of 22-year-old Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera).
Initially, information about and around Scott's existence is frenetically dispensed to the viewer. So you can just about keep up, but never quite follow where he is heading next.
Here is a brief summary of what immediately comes to light in the dizzying opening act.
Scott lives in the chilly Canadian city of Toronto, where he plays bass in an underground rock combo called the Sex Bob-ombs. He has a "fake high school girlfriend", a naive teenager named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), with whom he shares a bizarrely chaste relationship.
Scott used to go out with the black-hearted Envy Adams (Brie Larson), but she dumped him a year ago to become a white-hot pop star.
Elsewhere in Scott's eclectic entourage you will find a gay roommate, Wallace (Kieran Culkin), a busybody sister, Stacey (Anna Kendrick), a sort of sidekick, Neil (Johnny Simmons) and the moody woman about town, Julie Powers (Aubrey Plaza).
I'm sure you will agree that is enough potential plotting to fill a movie right there. But unbelievably, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is only just getting started.
Enter neon-haired mystery chick Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). A new arrival to Toronto -- where she works as a delivery girl with Amazon -- Ramona has a look, an attitude and a way with words that Scott cannot resist.
Upon achieving the near-impossible task of worming his way into Ramona's affections, Scott finds he will have a hell of a time remaining there.
Weirdly, a secret society of Ramona's "evil exes" has been formed. If Scott is to be her boyfriend, then he must vanquish each and every one of her former amours.
It's at this point that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World commences a series of audacious headlong dives into a realm of magic realism never encountered on screen before.
Scott's spectacular sequence of battles with the exes -- which include a muscle-bound action movie star (Chris Evans), a super-powered vegan rock star (Brandon Routh) and, umm, twin Japanese keyboard players -- all take place inside a wackily warped virtual reality.
It's as if a switch is flipped, and you are in a parallel universe that has been fed through an 8-bit video-game console from decades ago.
No explanation is ever forthcoming as to how these physics-defying fights are taking place. Or why each of Scott's opponents will shatter into a shower of shiny coins upon defeat.
Like Scott himself, you just have to go with the frenzied flow of it all. Hanging on for dear life has never been so much fun.
Aside from the clever writing (there is so much eminently quotable dialogue, it will take several viewings to get a handle on it all) and the razor-sharp performances of the young ensemble cast, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World also trumps all comers as a complete technical triumph.
British director Edgar Wright ( Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is already known for his complete mastery of all things nerdly. However, the overpowering audio-visual assault he unleashes here -- inventive, yet absolutely relevant to the most minute detail -- is sure to explode the heads of geeks everywhere.
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