Fresh Take on Teen Films but Fails on Other Fronts

Rating: 6/10 (22 February 2012)

I'll admit that I've never been neither much of a gamer nor an avid reader of comic books aka graphic novels. So, while I understood the gaming world references, there was little nostalgic value in the film for me personally and I had no idea about who Scott Pilgrim is.
The movie is definitely an achievement in teen movie genre that faces some problems with identity in the 21st century, IMHO. Michael Cera will definitely make you laugh, he's probably one of those characters you start to laugh at already seeing for the first time in the movie, the jokes are not as funny as Cera's characteristic stupid face and mannerisms. And that's a big problem with this film. You find yourself laughing not about the jokes but about the movie itself. Now, there's nothing wrong with it as Wright obviously intended "Scott Pilgrim" to be a stab at stupid action movies and video game clichÃ©s, among other things, but the attempts at serious drama just get lost in this CGI and Kung Fu or whatever extravaganza...
I remember "Watchmen" as I had a problem like this with that movie too. You might call it "style over substance" as nowadays, at least for me personally, "Sin City" like stylized comic book adaptations go far too over the top and it wouldn't be bad, it would be great if only they wouldn't try to attempt serious drama among all the CGI battles and explosions and Ddddddd's running on the street.
"Scott Pilgrim vs The World", as I said, is not a bad movie as it entertains and gives you a good time. But it's nothing more than that. It doesn't feel as revolutionary in the visual area as Avatar was and the plot, while it could work despite all the massive "why?" questions about everything on the screen (why is Scott sleeping in the same bed with a guy who's having gay threesome at the same time), is massacred by empty characters you cannot relate to and who either bore you or are utterly repulsive.
It's not a bad movie- it brings new things to teen movie genre, like interesting and clever visuals and cool battle scenes, it entertains and is funny, even if drags a bit at the end. But it isn't particularly good film either, as it's inhabited by "style over substance" in all areas and over the top/ exaggerated characters you cannot and don't want to relate to. In this way it's similar to already mentioned "Watchmen"