'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is about love and perseverance, about standing up for what you believe in – nothing complicated, the basic values - and all done with a fizzy originality that will keep you giggling.
Always destined to be a point of contention, professional shrinking violet, Michael Cera, manages to pull off a version of lead character Scott Pilgrim that has glimpses of brilliance.
In a series of set-pieces—all of this photographed by the cinematographer of the Matrix trilogy, by the way—our hapless hero, unprepossessing in the extreme, finds himself flying through the air like an anime character, getting slammed through a brick wall like one of The Three Stooges, and being punted hundreds of feet into the air like in a Warner Bros. cartoon, and rather than seeming silly, it all plays with perfect sense within the fantasy framework constructed here.
The various exes are like the end-of-level bosses who have special powers and abilities that Scott must find a way to overcome. Not only is this gaming approach an exciting stylistic device but it is also used as a simple yet effective metaphor for Scott having to find his inner strength in order to win Ramona’s love.
That a movie so clearly aimed at young people can include gay characters and themes so effortlessly and without a whiff of judgment, shame or apology is incredibly encouraging.