Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Elevator Pitch: Scott Pilgrim is a 22 year old man who plays bass in a band – that’s it really. He lives in a basement with a gay friend and has a relationship with a younger girl of Chinese origins until be meets Ramona who he starts to go out with. But his new relationship with her requires him to fight with and defeat her seven former lovers. Meanwhile the band is taking part in a rock competition and agains the odds is doing well.

Content: This is where it gets difficult! Scott and Ramona get down to their underwear once, and his flatmate having a gay sexual event is implied. Some drinking. But drug taking or not is not important, the whole movie is a psychedelic experience where the participants appear to be in a computer game for much of the time, whether playing in the band, or drinking at the bar, or in Scott’s case, fighting with Ramona’s exes, one of them being a Lesbian.

A View: I thought that a bit of it was very clever, and I laughed once, but of course I am old, and have only ever played two video games in my life, so I would not be the target audience. It was well liked by the critics and by the general audience and was a brave shot at an unusual presentation by the director, but it did not make any money. At time it is dificult to follow, the style requiring jumps from one scene to another without warning, and apparently without reference to the plot. So there it is, I would not recommend it, but it might still light your fire.

Additional Info: It is the biggest movie to actually be set in Toronto – rather than Toronto pretending to be somewhere else.