HOLLY CULP
Arts Editor

Relationships are, and always have been, difficult. Imagine how much more difficult they would be if you had to fight every one of your lover’s exes to the death. While that would never actually happen, people do have to deal with the pasts of their partners in order to be with them.

In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Michael Cera’s character Scott Pilgrim falls in love with the girl of his dreams and soon discovers that he will have to fight her seven evil exes to the death before they can truly be together.

Based on the comic book by Canadian writer/cartoonist Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World explores the complications that come with beginning a new relationship and taking on the past baggage of someone through a medium that is well understood by our generation: video games.

Paying homage to arcade classics like Mortal Combat, Pac-Man and Super Mario, the movie’s visual style is a hybrid of video games, live action and comic books with onomatopoeic words like “Thunk!” and “Wham!” appearing throughout the film. Director Edgar Wright, who also directed comedy hits Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, ensures that the movie is hilarious as well as heart warming.

The film is also subtly Canadian. It takes place in Toronto, in one scene Scott Pilgrim wears a CBC T-shirt and the movie’s cast is sprinkled with Canadians like Michael Cera, Allison Pill (Milk) and Ellen Wong.

Even though the casting of Michael Cera as the hapless and awkward but lovable protagonist seems too obvious, it’s eased by the support of actors like Kieran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Although the film hasn’t been terribly successful at the box office because it has had to compete with movies like The Expendables and Eat, Pray, Love, it has been widely well received and is very much worth seeing.