Edgar Wright is back with more genre-bending geek awesomeness.
I’ve been following Scott Pilgrim for a while now. I’d loved Edgar Wright’s earlier work – Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz but for some reason none of what I saw in the promos for his latest film grabbed me. Doubly weird considering I’m a massive Michael Cera fan. Everyone was going on about how awesome the trailer was but I still didn’t get just what the hell he was aiming for. Finally it clicked when the Universal intro came up in 8bit form. Now that is undeniably cool. Edgar Wright has gone even further than Kick Ass with Pilgrim and delivered the holy grail of geek cinema.
Based on the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Pilgrim follows the titular 23year old Canadian slacker (Cera) as he spends his days playing bass in his band, ‘Sex Bob-omb’ (spot the videogame reference) while pining for his ex-girlfriend Envy, now lead singer of the massive ‘Clash at Demonhead’ (more video game references!). He soon starts dating again though, with a high schooler named Knives (Ellen Wong) – much to the annoyance of the band and his gay flatmate Wallace (Keiran Culkin, in his best performance to date). This soon changes when he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Death Proof) at a party. After some typically Michael Cera type awkardness they end up dating. The only problem is, and this is where the movie really goes into overdrive – in order to continue dating her he has to defeat her ‘Seven Evil Exes’.
The film takes place in a hyper-reality halfway between the world we know and the world of comic books and video games. Your familiarity with these two staples of pop culture will have a pre-determining effect on whether you dig this movie. If you haven’t heard of Sonic, Zelda and Mario then A) what the hell have you been doing with your life? And B) you won’t like Scott Pilgrim. Before I go on about the good stuff I do have to gripe about the continued type-casting of Michael Cera. His man-boy antics can only go so far. Superbad, Juno, Arrested Development... shall I continue?
Throughout the film Scott is forced to engage in a series of Street Fighter type duels to get rid of Ramona’s exes (note how I didn’t say boyfriends there hint hint…). Each one is increasingly ridiculous and subsequently increasingly awesome. And what happens when they fall to the undeniable prowess of the man-child Scott Pilgrim? They burst into coins! Yes, coins. I told you it was gamer nirvana. Did I mention the Zelda Great Fairy music? The Guitar Hero bass duels? The Magic The Gathering type character ratings?
I could go on forever picking off reference after reference but that is half the fun of the movie and I’ll leave that for you to do. I will say that Todd (Brandon Routh) was my favourite of the evil exes. The guy has vegan super-powers. VEGAN SUPERMAN! Chris Evans and perennial indie favourite Jason Schwartzmann also impress with small roles as evil ex number 2 and number 7 respectively. Number 7 also happens to be the man meant to be signing Sex Bob-omb to a major label. Too bad.
However even with the hyperactive geek cool and genre mash-ups that Wright has become so renowned for he still blows the proverbial wad a tad early. The film is so top heavy with MTV editing and wave after wave of pop-culture references that it becomes all a bit overwhelming and the central heart of the story doesn’t get the attention it deserves. The fact this assault lasts for nearly 2 hours doesn’t help. It’s not perfect, and its narrow target demographic may hurt box office takings (it opened to a disappointing $10million in the US). Though like Kick Ass, Pilgrim will have a stellar life on DVD, where it’s destined to become a cult classic.
****
Andrew Cozens