Pilgrim's Progress

I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World at the drive-in first - that worked pretty well. But of course, I don't blog about the drive-in, just Netflix.OK, now we've seen it on Netflix.

Made by Edgar Wright of Shawn of the Dead/Hot Fuzz fame, this stars Michael Cera in the title role. Scott Pilgrim is a 20-something slacker in Toronto with no job, no ambition, no bed (he sleeps chastely with a gay friend - Keiran Culkin). All he has is a gig playing bass in a sucky punk band and a 17-year-old girlfriend, Knives Chau. Then he meets the girl of his dreams, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers. There is one problem (other than that she is way out of his league) - he has to defeat her seven evil exes to become her boyfriend.

The film is fun, exciting and annoying. The style is wild, fantastic, bravura: the duels with the exes are done in video game style, there are comic book animation inserts, a short section performed as a Seinfeld episode, etc. This movie was originally a "graphic novel" and you can tell. It's fun and it totally works.

On the other hand, Scott Pilgrim is kind of a pill. Cera plays him as weak, whiny and more chinless than usual. It's hard to warm up to him, and hard to believe that Ramona would go out with him. It's hard to believe that Knives would go out with him, and she's a totally wet Chinese-Canadian Catholic schoolgirl.

I think Dennis Cozzalio over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule figures it out. He hated it the first time he saw it, partly due to the unlovable protagonist. When he saw it again, he understood that the movie takes place in Pilgrim's mind - Pilgrim isn't unaware that he is an asshole; he is his worst critic.

Frankly, I don't need this viewpoint to enjoy the movie. It is full of great characters like angry cutie Kim Pine (Alison Pill), the band's drummer and little jokes like Stephen Stills and Young Neil ("Henceforth you shall be know as 'Neil'"). Still, it makes me feel a little better about liking a movie about such a dork.