By Simon Stone
Scott Pilgrim is the bassist in Toronto’s least favourite band, Sex Bob-Omb. He got dumped a year ago & is still in turmoil but attempting to get over it by dating (just holding hands) 17 year old schoolgirl Knives Chau. When he meets new girl in town Ramona Flowers things take a turn for the better until it’s revealed that to date her he’ll have to defeat her 7 evil ex’s.
The film opens with the Universal logo & theme rendered as though it was appearing at the start of an 8-bit Nintendo game. This will raise laughs from people (mostly men) of a certain age (over 30) who spent too long in their bedrooms perfecting Ryu’s Dragon Punch. The rest of the film continues to layer on references to video games like energy bars & Tekken style voice-overs.
Edgar Wright has gone back to Spaced’s fast paced style to create a world that apes the original comic as closely as possible (with “Thwock”s & “Blam”s still intact during the fight scenes) which has the drawback of making the first 20 minutes feel like an elongated trailer.
Michael Cera (Youth in Revolt) does his Michael Cera mumbling thing which you’d think would be getting tired now but strangely isn’t, though he is acted off the screen by Jason Schwartzman who, as evil ex number 7 Gideon Graves manages to be a screen villain that, like Alan Rickman’s Sheriff Of Nottingham & Jack Nicholson’s Joker, you actually like.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World review: 4.1/5
