Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Fight! Jeez what a film! Seems a complete waste of time writing about something as ferociously visual as this but I'll have a pop. Or if you want a 'skip to the end' summary - I loved it but it was a hard fought love. CONTINUE?

Clearly I had a good idea what to expect. I am a film nerd and that's my pretend job. But for the first 20 minutes or so, I found my inner monologue disturbing my concentration with 'you're not really enjoying this are you' sneers. It was true. What was all this hipster talky-talk and self-conscious wackiness? Does Michael Cera have to be so whingey? He sounds like Luke Skywalker moaning about having to go and pick up some power converters.

I resolved to battle on. Fight! Slowly and steadily, the magic started to happen until - POWER UP - I was fully plugged in and ready to play. Which is all really just a ham fisted (mMMmmmm ham) way of saying that it clicked and from then on I was hooked. In some ways, I almost love the film more because it had to win me over.

My cinema-going chum asked me how on earth he'd describe it to his wife. I said he should say that it was a love story in the style of a musical where awesome computer game type fights replace the songs. To me, this makes complete sense. Instead of the characters stopping to burst into a song and dance routine they leap through the air and throw dragon-kicks and fireballs at each other.

Edgar Wright is fab. I've liked everything he's done that I've seen that he's done. The energy he creates on the screen is incredible - your eyes won't be popped anything like it this year. It's also a film that celebrates being young without condascending those lucky enough to still be young (aw bless 'em) but above all it champions pop-culture and the most successful form of entertainment on the planet - video games. Cinema (and mass media in general) usually doesn't 'get' video games but this is a love-letter to anyone that's ever waggled their joystick into the small hours. The coins dropping from the vanishing bodies are beep-beepingly brilliant. LEVEL UP.

Don't worry if the sight of the Universal logo with an 8-bit version of the theme does nothing for you though, there's still much to enjoy without knowing your Commodores from your MegaDrives. The fight scenes are fun and thrilling (like the Matrix when the Matrix was good), there's loads of humour and sight gags, the offbeat cast hit all the right beats (loved the grumpy ginger drummer girl), the soundtrack's cool and the whole thing is just refreshingly refreshing. How could you not enjoy a movie that includes Vegan Police and a battle of the bands that leads to a mental shockwave monster smackdown.

Go and see it. Not enough people have. GAME OVER.