Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Edgar Wright’s energetic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World tanked at the box office because the ad campaign did a crap-lousy job of communicating what it’s about and why people should care. The one shot of Michael Cera jamming on a bass guitar makes it seem like another of his twee indie shoe gazers, but it’s actually an incredibly fun and visually alive effects comedy. Scott Pilgrim is a Toronto-born slacker whose universe is filtered through the outsized fantasy and inflated self-assessment of video games. He’s regressively dating a high-schooler as the film opens, but he quickly falls head over heels for the elusive Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). This brings him into direct competition with Ramona’s seven evil exes, all of whom possess various superpowers. Wright keeps Scott Pilgrim humming up until to the end, when it becomes too concerned with lesson learning.