“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” feels like the pink-haired love child of a comic book, a video game and a movie. OK, that’s three parents, but who’s counting in the bizarro world that “Scott Pilgrim” inhabits.

Well, a bizarro world for anyone who hasn’t read a graphic novel or comic book in the last 20 years or played a video game without progressing to the second level.

Director Edgar Wright layers the visual language of those media — split frames, text sound effects, power meters, extra life icons, cheesy special effects — over almost every frame of his adaptation of the Bryan Lee O’Malley graphic novel, creating eye candy with wit and a caffeine kick.

In this film publicity image released by Universal Pictures, Michael Cera is shown in a scene from "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World".
Universal Pictures/Associated Press

It’s giddy and geeky, a roller coaster ride through the gaming and graphics hills of pop culture. And like a roller coaster, it’s all about the ride and not the destination.

Toronto slacker Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) floats through his life, with his rock band Sex Bob-omb, gaming and roommate Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin) the few anchors to that existence.

He’s got a new girlfriend, a high schooler with the great name of Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), but that’s pretty much a one-way relationship. Then he falls for magenta-haired delivery girl Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), only to discover that winning her attention will require, in true video game fashion, the sequential defeat of her exes.

Shower of coins

Seven of them. As in the League of Evil Exes (not all male, incidentally), each with different strengths, including mad kung-fu moves, super skateboard skills, vegan powers and sonic waves. Vanquishing each results in a shower of coins.

In addition to these challenges, the nebbish Pilgrim finds Sex Bob-omb, with leader Stephen Stills (Mark Webber), Young Neil (Johnny Simmons) and angry drummer Kim Pine (Alison Pill) progressing in a battle of the bands competition toward possible record label consideration by music mogul Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman).

Strong supporting cast

Pilgrim also has to navigate the snags of other relationships, namely the doting Chau, his snarky sister Stacey (Anna Kendrick) and his own ex-, rock star Envy Adams (Brie Larson).

“Scott Pilgrim” is seeded with gaming references — the chunky graphics and tinny sound effects of ’80s games, video arcades, Mortal Kombat and Super Mario Brothers, and special weapons such as the Sword of Love, for starters — and a driving rock soundtrack.

“Scott Pilgrim’s” one stumbling point is its Scott Pilgrim. Cera provides different shades of beige for the character, precisely what’s called for, but it’s so similar to his nerdish roles in “Juno,” “Superbad” and “Nick and Nora’s Excellent Playlist,” it’s hard to truly see Pilgrim rather than Cera.

Cera’s trademark whateverness contrasts with the intriguing characters around Pilgrim, such as his roommate Wallace, who’s matter-of-fact gay but not the usual effeminate, boy-crazy or saucy stereotype we see too often; the intriguing Ramona with multiple boyfriends/exes; the winsome Chau; and the angry women at the periphery of Pilgrim’s awareness.

They’re drawn in broad strokes, to be sure — they’re comic book characters, after all — but one wants more screen time with them than the movie’s central figure.

Maybe that’s the film’s unintentional joke: If Scott Pilgrim is the Everyman of the geek/gaming universe, does that mean we’re not as interesting as the worlds we like to inhabit?

choover@wacotrib.com

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