Scott Pilgrim, (Michael Cera) is a hopeless romantic who jumps from girl to girl, that is until he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). This slacker thought he had it made when he started dating Ramona but that all changed when he is suddenly attacked by one of her evil ex-boyfriends. He realizes that he has to defeat all seven of her evil exes, video game style, in order to win the heart of fair maiden.
Honestly, now that I'm home writing this review for this flick, I'm still not 100% sure what to think of it. On one hand it was incredibly awesome seeing all those great 80's and 90's video game references as Scott mows down the competition turning them into gold coins when he's through with them. On the other hand, as cool as the sequences were, if I had a heart condition for all that rapid eye movement I think I would have had a stroke after the first ten minutes. Maybe that's the old person in me talking but damn this movie bounces all over the place. It's an interesting take on relationships, playing the emotion as a video game. But on another it's hard to take anything or anyone seriously at all, thus making it difficult to really care about anyone or anything at all. Michael Cera is probably the biggest offender here as he pulls out all the Cera stops that he has the past few years and I can really see now why his schtick is getting old. He's annoying and he's pretty unlikable for most of the film, and I can't tell if that's just Michael Cera or Director Edgar Wright trying to make his hero a little more anti-heroish. Regardless, the humor in the flick really works. I love he fights Superman Brandon Routh who is powered by Vegan products, pretty damn funny. Also thought his fight with Hollywood Star Lucas Lee (Chris Evans) was pretty kick ass too. So in some weird way Michael Cera's scrawny ass not only defeats Superman but Captain America too?
It was a pretty fun supporting cast, I'm really loving Mary Elizabeth Winstead, she truly does have very pretty eyes and even though I'm not digging her weird hair changes, (again I'm old) she makes for an interesting love interest with her strange baggage she puts on Scott. I thought Kieran Culkin's smart ass roommate of Scott's was pretty damn funny. As well as Alison Pill, Ana Kendrick and newcomer Ellen Wong. Wong's fight scene at the end was pretty spectacular. As well as the fight with Jason Schwartzman's Gideon Graves, it totally felt I was watching Tekken 2 on the big screen. Overall Edgar Wright has proven once again why he's a great director and he is the king of original comedy. But it loses points cause of it's star Michael Cera. That guy really needs to learn how to expand his pallet or he's done for in this biz, and if I were to use the grosses for this flick as the barometer the clock is ticking. I think it barely made over 10 million opening weekend, and as I check Rentrak it looks like it's fallen out of the top ten all together. Ouch. But truthfully it's not a bad flick and given what came out this past weekend with Piranha's and Sperm switching I think it's totally worth a view. But I warn you if you don't like video games or have a history with video games then you're probably gonna be really annoyed with this movie.
Grade: 3 Buckets
2 comments:
Surely we deserve better than this cartoon mess? http://bit.ly/bU7tqN
I have to say I'm still pretty conflicted on this flick. I really did enjoy large pieces of it but it certainly isn't a slam dunk. I agree about the over-the-top cartoon stuff they tried to do. At times it was annoying and way too much. It's not as clever or fun as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. But I still am a big fan of Edgar Wright's, I just hope he hits the mark a bit better next time.
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