Video games, Fire Balls, Action; Mama Mia!

Rating: 9/10 (11 September 2011)

Scott Pilgrim is a 20-something small-time Canadian bass-guitarist living with a gay friend. He is dating a seventeen year old Asian girl, Knives C, much to the chagrin of those around him. Scott is smitten by Ramona Flowers, a mysterious girl with occasional tendencies of appearing in his dreams. But in order to get her, he has to battle and defeat the seven people she last dated or as they prefer calling them - her seven evil exes.
The story is not very intricate or clever. A boy loves a girl and must do something extraordinarily difficult (you know, fight someone dangerous people, climb Everest on his hands, listen to non-stop Justin Bieber for forty seven days) to win her over. But the way it has been portrayed is rather brilliant. It has been told in a nonchalant manner you can almost hear it saying 'who cares?' In a world where every movie is trying to outdo the other in terms of complicated plot lines and overwhelming stories, SPVTW comes like a burst of breath air. It doesn't make you think very much. The director Edgar Wright keeps things simple. However, unlike most other no-brainers, it gets the concoction right. Nothing has been overdone and the film falls strictly under the walls of sanity. The detached light-heartedness, the comic-timing, the ease with which the story flows all makes it delightful. It is the kind of film that you can watch multiple times yet not get tired of.
All the characters in the film are well-rounded and the actors play their parts with ease. The upcoming Michael Cera does an endearing job of being a cross between a bass guitarist with a penchant for pink- haired girls and a video-game uber-nerd. He makes a good lost-in-the- dark kid as creepy men repeatedly try and mash him to pulp. Scott isn't your stereotypical 'oh-he-is-so-nice' hero. Chicks won't swoon over him. They simply won't see how fighting seven incredibly powerful lunatics (most with superpowers) is being a better boyfriend than stalking, ditching and vampirizing your girlfriend. Alas, he can't glow in the sunlight; maybe that's the reason.
Though the film has plenty of side characters to toy around with, it manages to get them all right. The exes, Ramona, Knives, Scott's gay roommate Wallace, among a plethora of others, are all distinctly characterized. You don't get confused between any of them, remembering each of them by their individual personalities and idiosyncrasies. They carve their own identities within whatever little screen-time they are given. Many great movies have fallen in this trap, but Scott Pilgrim doesn't, making it all the more commendable.
The movie has a noticeable retro-gaming touch to it. It shows that the little things matter most and define the quality of the film. There are pee-bars, bass solos, anti-gravity stunts, bold subtitles, a Vegan, one- ups, KOs and plenty of other things that remind you of antiquated games. Defeated villains explode to coins. The action is very Matrix-like. Each villain enters like fighters in Street Fighter, or Mortal Kombat if you prefer. The action sequences are fast-paced with lots of fancy animation, effects and impact-verbs like 'whack!' or 'slam!' There is tons of eye-candy which also makes it a visual treat. Since it has been adopted from a comic, they are like a tribute to the original, glossy paper-back version.
Unfortunately, not much of the audience enjoyed it at first go. It proved to be a sleeper, blazing onto #1 on Blu-ray after its unceremonious exit from the theatres. The reasons were plenty and obvious. The sense of humour is impeccable. The jokes are funny, dark, caustic, satirical; yet always funny. The romance isn't mawkish and is one of the best I have seen in a while. It is refreshing. It doesn't make pretensions or allusions to something it could have been. Everything is right in front of you. Video-games, comics and cartoons truly make a spectacular movie.
It also teaches a very valuable lesson. Before you decide to date a girl, know if she has any ex-boyfriends with superpowers you might want to be careful off.