- I love movies, comic books, and video games, but I absolutely hated Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Having never read the original graphic novels, I don't know whether to blame director Edgar Wright, source material author/artist Bryan Lee O'Malley, or myself. (Just kidding, I'm totally hanging this on the two of them.) The story involves a floundering and philandering young man named Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), who finds himself dating hipster dream girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and seventeen-year-old Asian schoolgirl Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) at the same time. If the film were clearly satirizing real-life young men who thought that situation sounded awesome, it would be one thing, but Scott Pilgrim vs. the World inexplicably seems to be rooting against the world.
- In short, Scott finds himself battling Romona's various superpowered "exes" (Satya Bhabha, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Mae Whitman, Shota Saito, Keita Saito, Jason Schwartzman) in increasingly cartoonish battles dominated by video game logic. Characters zoom through the air delivering spin kicks, points are awarded, the defeated enemies drop coins when they die, etc. On a similar note, Scott's band is named "Sex Bob-omb," a competing band goes with NES deep-cut "Clash at Demonhead," and the Universal logo is memorably transformed into 8-bit video. In fact, the movie flaunts its gaming influences so brazenly that it inspired me to execute a "speed run" through its latter 2/3. For the record, it was the combination of Scott's SUPER-GAY roommate (Kieran Culkin), SUPER-HIP bandmates (Alison Pill, Johnny Simmons, Mark Webber), SUPER-ANNOYING sister (Anna Kendrick), and SUPER-AWFUL TREATMENT OF WOMEN that led to my SUPER-IMPATIENCE. Eventually Scott gains some self-respect, but it arrives about 90 minutes too late.
- Also wasted in this film were Brie Larson, Aubrey Plaza, and the music from various Zelda games.
