Edgar 'Spaced, Shaun of the Dead' Wright's massively divisive video game fantasy is a strange beast.
The plot:
Dork supremo Michael Cera plays Scott Pilgrim, bassist in a band called Sex Bob-Omb. Even though he is in his early twenties, he's dating a seventeen year old Chinese girl named Knives. At a party, hoping to get a break with some A and R types, he meets the girl of his dreams, Ramona, and promptly makes a complete tit of himself.
A few days later, when Scott opens his door to receive a parcel, he is surprised to find that it is Ramona herself acting as courier and plucks up the courage to ask her on a date. Reluctantly, she agrees, but omits to tell him that, in order to date her Scott must do battle to the death against her Seven Evil Exes.....
Based on a graphic novel, visually this combines the comic strip ethic with retro video game stylings: When a punch lands, captions pop up saying Kerpow, when a phone rings, it's there in lettering on the screen and, when an enemy is defeated, they are rendered into coins to be gathered.
With a soundtrack that utilises the sound effects from classic computer games, this should be every gamers fantasy but, crucially, the thing that drags this down is the teen soap opera trappings of the plot. Take away the overtly stylistic approach from Wright, and what you are left with is an extended episode of Hollyoaks, which no-one wants, surely.
This hybridisation leaves it quite a cold viewing experience as, for everything of merit, there is an element to disappoint.
Quite unlike any other film I have ever seen, for which credit is due, it's also pretty clear why this flopped so spectacularly at the box office.
A failure, then, but a noble one.
3 out of 5
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