One very special morning when I was a child I came out into the living room to see what Santa had brought me, and before my brother and me was a brand new Nintendo. We spent all day playing Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. Sometimes growing up I wished for several lives to get something right, or found money just lying around for me to pick-up. Unfortunately life isn’t a video game, but that’s not the case for Scott Pilgrim.
Michael Cera plays Scott, an unemployed 22-year-old who has a gay roommate, plays in a band, and is dating a high schooler. But everything changes when Scott meets Ramona, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Ramona is the kind of girl Scott dreams of...literally. In order to date her Scott has to get past her ex’s...again, literally. Ramona has seven evil ex’s who are devoted to ruining her love life forever. If Scott wants this girl, he’s going to have to power-up, get the high score, and grab as many extra lives as he can to defeat them.
Based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley, this film was like a breath of fresh air to the film industry. Instead of making a film based on a video game (which usually suck) this film takes video games cliches and puts them in real world scenarios. My generation grew up on Nintendo, Sega, and Playstation, and to see a film about what it would be like if life was a video game is just frikkin cool. Director Edgar Wright made sure the battles, sound effects, and score were brought right out of the games we all played, making the audience comfortable with everything that was happening.
Of course to pull it all off Wright needed the right cast, and I think he found it. Cera was a great lead for this fast talking, actions packed, comical film. Scott is a mixture of emotions as he struggles with his insecurities, tries to make a relationship work while struggling to deal with her baggage, and eventually coming to terms with his own position in life. Cera pulled it all off superbly, because by the end of the film I was rooting for him.
Of course a hero is only as good as his supporting cast. Mary Elizabeth Winstead played Ramona with such allure and mystery that even I would have fought seven people just for her affection. Kieran Culkin added a lot of laughs as Scott’s gay roommate, Wallace. His sexual escapades and wise advice made him the kind of roommate we all wish we had at one time in our lives.
The rest of Scott’s entourage filled their roles nicely, but Scott had to take on the evil ex’s on his own, which included some recognizable faces like Chris Evans, Bradon Routh, and Jason Schwartzman. When Schwartzman and Cera duked it out in a fist fight I found it rather odd since both of them are known for playing nerdy characters but here they were throwing down like some kung-fu movie. The ex’s all had too little of screen time to really make an impression, but they filled their roles well nonetheless.
If you can keep with the quick transitions and fast dialogue, this film is a romance about two young people who had gotten love wrong a lot of times and have to stop letting their past dictate their future. Meanwhile, we get to see some cool fights, funny punch lines, and Winstead change her hair color every twenty minutes. If you have wasted hours of your life playing video games then this is a film for you; for our generation.
Rating: A-
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