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Is it worth $10? No
“Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” is determined to entertain, and it does for a while, until it becomes too much of everything. This is a movie made for video gamers with ADD in search of a seizure. It’s an over-edited, one-dimensional mess with a simplistic story that lacks the guts to be about anything more than its self-indulgent style.
Dorky Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is dating pink-haired Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and he’s totally into her. She likes him too for reasons that are not clear. Then Scott learns he must defeat Ramona’s seven evil exes in order to be with her, and all the sudden the wimp becomes a Kung fu-fighting aerialist who can kick some serious ass.
How is this possible? Because the story takes place in a video game world, and true to form writer/director Edgar Wright (“Hot Fuzz”) includes scores, power ups, life meters and more to immerse us in the fantasy setting. And then he keeps immersing us, to the point where we’re overloaded with neon flashing and self-aware video game quirks, leaving us wanting to blink again. As a gimmick the video game stuff is fine, but as the entire premise and selling point it’s way too much.
The reason “Scott Pilgrim” feels tedious is because essentially the same thing happens seven times, and by the third time we’re over it. This would be easier to swallow if the movie was funny, but the laughs aren’t consistent enough to compensate for story redundancy.
Another gripe: Could Michael Cera please play someone other than Michael Cera? Sure he does some fighting here, but he’s still playing the guy from “Juno” and “Superbad” and every other movie he’s done. If people get weary of this screen persona, we may never see him again.
I do understand why people would like “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” and I think video game aficionados will enjoy it more than others. Too bad I’ve never been a video game guy. I just know it can’t be a good thing to leave a movie feeling like you just watched someone else play a boring video game for two hours.
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