What Wright did next

My love for Spaced is no secret. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are similarly adored. In my mind, director Edgar Wright can do little wrong.

My love for Michael Cera is similarly boundless. Such a perfectly symmetrical, awkward and bird like face. His comedy heart is smeared all over the golden Arrested Development, Juno and Superbad.

In the weeks leading up to the release of Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I have been engaging in some expectations management. I like to call it the My Girl effect. That bitter pill of disappointment you feel when something you have been looking forward to for so so long turns out to be not quite as awesome as you expected.

But even so, I was hitting extreme levels of excitement.

Dammit.

The plot follows Scott Pilgrim, Canadian slacker muso, with no job and a gay room mate. In his quest for self discovery and actualisation through the love of a good indie woman. The central premise is the difficulties of negotiating the past of your new partner. Through the metaphoric battles of wills, that in this film are physicalised, video game style.

I should be totally in love with this film. It is stylish and witty, with an eclectic mix of unpredictable characters with all the quirks that usually make me giggle. There are kickarse fight sequences, geeky allusions to all kinds of pop culture. Witty wordiness. A complete lack of judgement in issues of gender and sexuality. Frequent shifts in pace. It was a little bit Wes Anderson in feel, and a little bit like a manga cartoon. Basically it was all the stuff that I usually find smittening.

But I found it a little bit of a let down. Maybe because I was sitting next to the sleep-deprived-Wes-Anderson-hating-unartsy Sparky, who was frequently heard whispering "what the fuck is going on?" Maybe it is because my expectations were skyhigh, even though I thought I had them under control.

Maybe this film needs another chance. Or perhaps it is just better on paper?