Z/Web

I had never even heard of the comic book this was based upon so I came into this with any expectations. The plot sounded interesting: a guy must defeat his new girlfriend’s seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to date her. What surprised me was the film’s unusual style — perhaps that’s similar to the comic, but I wasn’t expecting that at all. It’s very much a live action video game, completely with game sounds and animations when players — I mean actors — punch each other. Other aspects are comic booky, such as animated text indicating sounds (i.e. a phone goes “RRRIINNNNGGG”) and text panes as transitions between scenes. This creates a certain surrealness to the proceedings, as well as a hip sense of humor. I like that a lot. At times, however, it seemed a bit much, and as the movie went on, it occasionally became irritating. Part of the problem is that the plot feels too slight, with the result that the film’s style soon becomes the film’s only depth, and that feels quite shallow and a bit silly. The plot is pretty much what I’d heard about the fighting the exes. It’s very well done: each of the ex-boyfriends has a different fighting style, personality, etc., and the way Scott Pilgrim defeats them is cool and interesting. There’s a hint of further depth — sort of a catharsis of saying goodbye to your ex-loves and moving on — but it’s not very well handled and there never really is an explanation about why Scott must battle the exes. Ultimately, this is a wonderful spectacle: fun, imaginative, and colorful, with excellent performances by the cast who go whole-heartedly into this world, but the film lacks purpose and heart and ends up feeling like an experiment in style. That’s too bad, because this could have been incredible. Instead it’s worth seeing for the interesting style, but not much else. The story’s just too weak to support the spectacle.