Sylvester Stallone finally won me over on the Rambo franchise, but he’s not the right-wing hero with a film opening tomorrow. That would be director Edgar Wright with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World . I have no idea if Scott Pilgrim is going to take off like Pulp Fiction or bomb like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. All I know is that Scott Pilgrim can stand proudly alongside Wright’s Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz as great conservative filmmaking.

Wright better hope for younger conservatives, though. Scott Pilgrim is a rock ’n roll comedy with a dated slacker aesthetic and an overblown video-game mentality. Despite a nicely amiable set-up, the film quickly becomes a series of high-tech battles between Scott and the Seven Evil Exes of his new girlfriend Ramona. That’s still not nearly as irritating as the miscasting of Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s hair as the object of Scott’s affections.

The big redemption is Michael Cera being perfectly likeable as the title character. A lot of that can be credited to the screenplay by Wright and Michael Bacall. We first meet our heartbroken hero when he’s enjoying a carefully platonic relationship with an underage high-school girl. Scott’s still in recovery from being ditched by an old-girlfriend-turned-rock-star. The romantic triangle with Scott’s platonic pal and the ravishing new Ramona ends up being one of the more adult love stories of the year—and that’s even as Wright wraps his characters in an adolescent fervor.

Despite the constant promise of sex and violence, Scott lives in a world where the two most important laws are No Infidelity and No Guys Hitting Girls. It’s typical of Wright that the latter is casually broken by a self-righteous vegan musician. The character of Ramona isn’t idealized, either. By the end of the film, the hipster goddess is revealed as a bit of a mess who’s far too easily controlled. The final scene might not be as ideal as I’d like, but others could have perfectly valid arguments otherwise (although I doubt they’ve dated girls with hair like Ramona’s.)

In any case, Scott Pilgrim offers plenty of important lessons for adolescents. Smart parents should be buying tickets for their teenagers right now. It’ll be a good sign if all the screenings are sold out on Friday night.

 

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