'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' blasts along on sheer spectacle

Posted August 11, 2010 11:00 pm

Dann Gire

Throw away your Ritalin and prepare to be awed!

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is no ordinary movie.

It's a delightfully unhinged multimedia sensory assault, an in-your-eyes-and-ears romantic fantasy that combines comic books, video games, TV sitcoms, Hong Kong martial arts movies and old-fashioned soap operas.

"Scott Pilgrim" has been blindingly edited with strobe light speed, and every frame explodes with wit, imagination and pop culture verve.

It throws out so much razzle and dazzle that it eventually begins to frazzle. But just getting to this film's point of diminishing returns is well worth the trip.

The story follows the hallucinogenic, wacked-out adventures of a 22-year-old Toronto lad named Scott (the laconically droll Michael Cera) who lives with his gay roommate Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin) and has fallen in love with a high school student named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), even though they've never even held hands.

Scott often practices playing guitar for his indie-rock band in a small apartment.

Right away, you know you're in a comic book-inspired alternate universe when cartoon graphics visually emphasize sound effects (think "Biff!" from the 1960s "Batman" TV show) and major items of importance on the screen receive identification arrows, as in the old "Dick Tracy" comic strip.

The plot kicks in when Scott meets his blue-haired soul mate, the enigmatic Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a sultry rebel with a checkered past.

All Scott wants to do now is stay with Ramona. But before that can happen, he must first find a delicate way to break the news to poor Knives.

Oh, and he must also fight to the death Ramona's "evil exes." Old boyfriends. Seven of them.

Each one has super powers. But not to worry. Scott - without any explanation - assumes super powers, too. So he can fly through the air like a ninja assassin to repel attacks from the Evil Exes, accompanied by screeching comic book graphics and ear-tingling sound effects.

When Scott cuts the arms off an Evil Ex, the limb instantly turns into coins. When Scott destroys an Evil Ex, the corpse also turns into coins, just as in a video game.

I know. It sounds crazy to everyone, except fans of the popular "Scott Pilgrim" comic books written by Bryan Lee O'Malley. The Internet has been abuzz with banter about the movie version, directed with full-throttle imagination and vigor by Edgar Wright, the Brit director who gave us the quirky, laugh-a-minute genre comedies "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."

Wright finds just the right balance between fanboy nuance and mass-market conventionality to make "Scott Pilgrim" work. His ability to tell a story in this hyper-stylized, joystick generation Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy is impressive, especially when you consider how relatively easy it is to keep from getting the secondary cast members confused.

(Chris Evans is a walking, fighting male ego as one of the Evil Exes. Jason Schwartzman oozes sleaze as the most powerful Evil Ex, capable of putting Ramona under his evil thumb on whim.)

Remember that point of diminishing returns cited earlier?

"Scott Pilgrim" simply can't sustain its feature-length running time on sheer spectacle and visual gimmickry. Wright pays a price for the wonderful onslaught of creative visuals, and that is diminished investment in his strange and eccentric characters.

They serve the style in this movie, and not vice-versa. Fortunately, the style is so engaging and inspired that Wright almost gets away with it.

Almost.

Although Cera is an inspired choice to play Scott from a comedy perspective - his low-key delivery gives the jokes a bristling crackle - the actor's characteristic deadpan shtick doesn't give Scott much to work with dramatically.

That is, during the few moments he's not zooming through the air, cutting off Evil Exes' arm and turning them into gold coins.

<p class="factboxheadblack">"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"</p>

<p class="News"><b>Starring: </b>Michael Cera, Jason Schwartzman, Anna Kendrick, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Alison Pill, Chris Evans</p>

<p class="News"><b>Directed by:</b> Edgar Wright</p>

<p class="News"><b>Other:</b> A Universal Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for drug references, language, sexual situations and violence. 112 minutes</p>

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