Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim a bass player in the band Sex Bob Bomb who despite having an Asian girlfriend falls head over heels for Ramona Flowers. (That girl with a rocky past) Michael Cera seems to get tight cast in teen romance comedies like Juno and the great Youth in Revolt. You can see why though he’s hilarious in any awkward situation you put him in and he plays his insecure weak persona so well you can’t help feel the pain he goes through in those movies.
However in this movie his character is very different, certainly not instantly likeable, he’s self centred and kind of an asshole. The starting setup was rather slow but thankfully when it ramps up it really ramps up and suddenly his whole life turns into a Comic book/Video game literally!
If you didn’t already know Scott Pilgrim is based on a comic book and no movie in history has been as faithful to the source material like this. The movie uses a lot of frantic cuts like you’re going from one frame to another and fantastically spells out things with huge letters when punches and kicks are delivered and even emotions felt. There are so many retro video game references that are so charming and well thought out I was amazed!
The movie is basically centred on the 7 evil X-boyfriends of Ramona Flowers who Scott Pilgrim has to fight in order to win her love. They are all uniquely different with their own fighting style to go with it. The evil X I thought was most genius was Todd Ingram played by Brandon Routh, (Superman) he probably got the hardest laugh throughout the entire movie as he plays a pretentious vegan who has psychic powers.
There something really compelling to me about turning someone’s reality into a comic book because it becomes so much more revealing to a characters identity when nothing is hidden. I mean you don’t need a psychological degree to understand what is going on in each person’s head because it’s shown to you in such an exaggerated detail.
In real life there would probably only be a subtle facial cue or an argument that would break out when meeting someone’s ex. In this movie it’s a round house kick to the face or hadoken uppercut through a ceiling, it’s so brutally honest you've gotta love it.
The movie is really funny and action packed but beneath all the crazy action and whacky humour there is a deep social commentary which I found quite fascinating as I could see certain traits in people I knew and more uncomfortably in myself.
I left the cinema deciphering what the movie would have been if it wasn’t a comic book and more surprisingly I found myself taking a hard look at myself at times and realising just how shallow I had been at certain times in my life. People don’t like to see their own imperfections so maybe they won’t identify with Scott Pilgrims shallowness or Ramona Flowers heart breaking nature.
In fact most won’t go looking for any of this stuff as the oddball humour holds up for itself but if you do its a smarter movie than it would seem on the surface. It’s just a real shame to see it doing so poorly at the box office when its one of the most well produced films this month.
Boydee Blog Rating: 4/5 epic bass lines.
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