**
Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a daft 22-year-old who plays in a daft band. If there’s one thing the film does do well, it captures the lack of maturity we possess in our twenties, while seemingly all grown-up and independent. He meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who, we are unsubtly and repeatedly told, is really cool. When Scott starts to date her it is revealed that he must fight her seven evil exes. “Juvenile” doesn’t even begin to describe the film.
While I know it is much-loved by fans, for me the tone, the subject matter, the characters, the references you can safely say all did nothing for me. (Other than make my hand edge towards the remote to make it stop.) The constant sledgehammering of special effects is truly horrible. Phones will literally RING RING RING in big letters across the screen and doorbells will DING DONG. Every moment of this film is annoying.
The likes of Spaced and Shaun… are fine celebrations of geekdom. Their characters were likeable but never cool (at least not in the traditional sense) and it made them all the more entertaining. Scott Pilgrim’s dizzying fight skills attempt to sell him as cool. Michael Cera – ironically, at his most pathetic - apropos of nothing has superhuman fighting ability. In a nutshell, it’s all a bit try-hard. Even the most fantastic of fantasies has to be grounded by some kind of reality for it to create any sense of drama. This has no such thing.
Technically, there is much to admire here. Edgar Wright flexes some serious directorial muscle making something quite ground-breaking. It is is quite a spectacle and has great flair. And the editing is brilliant. [Great work Amos but sorry, I told you it wasn’t for me.]
Sometimes the public get it right. This was a bona fide box office disaster. At cinemas it failed to recoup its $60milion (estimated) production budget. It will no doubt have some effect, but I sincerely hope it doesn’t damage the career of the talent that is Edgar Wright.
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