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Created Aug 18, 2010 09:25PM PST • Edited May 05, 2024 08:38AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Boy gets girl is as traditional as movies get. Scott Pilgrim gets the girl alright, but the rest of this video-game inspired romantic comedy gets pretty far from traditional.

   Start with the boy, a nerdy rocker. Then the girl, a man-eater with a slew of evil – superpowered – exes, not all of them guys. Put this couple together in an uber ironic film that liberally injects video-game fantasy into slacker-hipster settings, and the result is a creatively funny mess. Still, funny is funny, with extra points awarded for extreme creativity.

   The creativity comes from the mix of droll dialog, FX fantasy, on-screen titles (“ring, ring, ring” goes the phone), and ironic juxtaposition, lots of it. Whew. Lots to describe, and lots to keep up with during the movie. Not to worry. Filmmaker Edgar Wright brings it home, lots more so than in the overpraised Hot Fuzz, one of his previous parodies.

   Stud-muffin extraordinaire Michael Cera and Holly Golightly Mary Elizabeth Winstead make a freshly appealing leading couple, grounding the movie by becoming more sympathetic as the wackiness around them escalates. In the end, we hope they make it. And that’s the most traditional emotion a movie can elicit.

   Teens, 20-Somethings, and those going to the movies with them will find Scott Pilgrim vs. the World lotso fun.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Michael Cera’s patented diffidence delivers on another leading-manchild role. Disarmingly appealing, he’s also a credible musician, here a grunge rock bassist. That always helps with the chicks.

   Mary Elizabeth Winstead impresses as a non-malicious man-eater. Like many a great screen siren, her sex appeal isn’t shockingly apparent at first, yet grows convincingly over the course of the movie.

   The rest of the cast includes a variety of solid performances from notable players:

   • Kieran Culkin’s promiscuous gay roommate.
   • Alison Pill’s deadpan drummer. If Ringo Starr reincarnates as a teen girl, she’d be him.
   • Ellen Wong’s besotted high school girlfriend.
   • Chris Evans’s pumped up action movie star.
   • Jason Schwartzman’s Svengali-like rock impresario.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   Michael Cera

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   Mary Elizabeth Winstead

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    The film’s pow-bam-bash video game look and feel makes sense given its graphic novel origins. Edgar Wright – who also directed Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead – builds on this post-modern narrative framework by applying his proven comedic sensibilities.

    One taste: Scott Pilgrim dramatically gets ready for a cataclysmic fight with a super enemy. So we’re treated to fast cut scenes of him pulling on his wrist bands, complete with amped up music. All of sudden the scene screeches to a halt as he stoops down to slowly tie his Adidas, even messing up one knot and having to start over again. Funny.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.2

    Risqué indeed. Scott’s gay roommate sleeps with an ever expanding roster of guys, while the girl of Scott’s dreams gets pursued by her jilted ex-girlfriend. “Bi-curious,” as the movie says.

17. Sex Titillating 2.5

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Fantasy 4.1

    The movie’s conceit is that normal reality often rends apart for video game fantasy, and then returns to a normal course of events.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Fantasy 4.6

24. Physical Fantasy 4.6