Universal Studios
Michael Cera must confront and conquer the seven evil exes of the out-of-his-league girl of his dreams in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a movie that’s “no more than a skit,” but a likable one “embellished with curlicues of wit,” according to Anthony Lane in his review for The New Yorker. Adapted from a comic book, the film is accessorized with special effects like “Thonk” scrawled on the screen when the hero hits his head. Cera is an “implausible” lady-killer and fighter. “The film is alive with bad rock bands and dizzying bit parts, the standout being Kieran Culkin, in the role of Scott’s gay roommate, but we feel them gyrating around a hollow core,” Lane writes. Cera’s fights “are staged and filmed as if they were video games, all painless panic, and they are best taken as Scott’s inward reveries of a power that he will never possess.”