Review of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) by Skantea — 28 Dec 2010

I don't have televisions so I missed the hype. I haven't read a comic book in fifteen years and (unfortunately) both my thumbs tend to lock up from previous injuries so video games aren't a part of my life (except for online poker and scrabble). All that said, I thought this movie was adorable and technically proficient. The only real question should be how effective is it in the film medium to consistently and irreverently poke holes in the fourth wall (look it up if you must). Not many films can pull this off without stealing the energy out of a scene, and even fewer can do it and add multiple levels of texture and charm. This film is NOT an exercise in depth, it's the opposite. It's an experiment in the relative unimportance of all thing pop culture. Here no one is trying to figure out anything or learn something new, it's just an internally laconic, externally hyper active cycling through the the various digital entertainment streams which construct the world through which young people attempt to relate to each other. It's channel surfing, while gaming, while IMing, while occasionally replying to the voice coming from your ear bud.

This new generation is detachedly aware that everything is fake (the media, politics, old people's advice), and that a relaxed approach to hedonism works just as well as anything else. I personally didn't give up on idealism until I turned thirty, but I suspect many young people have never seen the point of it to begin with. To them it's something akin to the flu, eventually you get over it.

S this a good thing? Probably so. Sure, they embrace fairy tales, but only in so far as it relieves boredom. What will inevitably comes next is a more mature understanding of people and the world at a younger age than their predecessors.

Scott Pilgrim ends the film not much different than he began, the experience not much more than finishing the final level of a video game. He may have gained more information about the people he's met, and perhaps even how that affects his moods, but in the end it's all just some stuff that happened, so, whatev.