If conventional superhero movies say something compelling, true, and even beautiful our powerlessness against love, less conventional ones like Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim have a more depressing message. Dave invents a secret, super-heroic identity because he can't find his way through the morass of social interaction on his own. Scott needs to be threatened by utter destruction and to win a series of escalating, supernatural battles in order to find the basic decency to apologize for cheating on two girls who love him. Are our heroes really so deficient of basic human values and social skills that they need to be wrenched into functionality by the extraordinary? And if it's this hard for Dave and Scott, what does it mean for the rest of us, trying to figure out the difficult passage between adolescence and decent adulthood without the aid of miraculous events or talents?
So, I Saw Scott Pilgrim on Friday
And I liked it quite a bit. It's all the good things critics say: visually innovative, full of some very good acting (Kieran Culkin is a major, major standout), and deeply felt. That said, it hit upon a couple of threads I've been considering for a while about superhero romance. I write at The Atlantic: