Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Dir: Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz)
With: Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin, Ellen Wong, Alison Pill, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Anna Kendrick, Jason Schwartzman
Finally, a movie that does the one thing I always wish for whenever I see a "mumblecore" film: it sends in a bunch of enraged avatars to beat the snot out of the so-called protagonist. And it's even more fun than I thought it would be.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World is sort of a cross between Mutual Appreciation and Tron. (One character even turns into the evil, flickering Master Control Program from Tron, toward the end.) It's based on a comic book (which I haven't read yet, but which is by all accounts awesome) but set in a video game, more or less. Scott Pilgrim (Cera) is an early-20s hipster-nerd from Toronto who, a year after a painful breakup, is dating a high-school girl (Wong, who's great) because it's "nice" and "easy." He's the typical Portland-style twentysomething guy, so passive and blase about everything that he ends up being, almost accidentally, a jerk to everyone who likes him.
In a mumblecore movie, that would be the entire plot. Lucky for us, this film has a story: Scott spies a mysterious beauty, falls instantly and geektastically in love with her, and has to do something that's pretty much the antithesis of mumblecore: fight for the thing he wants. (Which entails admitting he wants something. Gross!)
In order to date the beautiful Ramona Flowers (Winstead), Scott must defeat her seven evil exes. Each of these battles is inventive conceptually and visually - this is a movie that revels in doing what movies do better than any other medium. It's a total blast to watch. The writing and acting are smart, too, without any forced "honest-to-blog"-style cleverness. Kieran Culkin will make everyone want a cool gay roommate of their own. Alison Pill seethes with perfect adolescent disgust. And Cera's timid-dork persona works really well in the role. The only thing I think the movie gets wrong has to do with the epiphany Scott has near the end: it's not self-respect he's gained, but a heretofore absent regard for the feelings of others. Still, he's definitely learned something, and grown somehow, all the while thoroughly entertaining the rest of us. A-