Of all the potential blockbusters I’ve seen this summer the three most entertaining have been based on relatively new comic books. These are Kick Ass, The Losers and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Whilst this suggests Hollywood is still plundering other media for its ideas, at least these ideas seem fresh and exciting. In addition to borrowing narratives from graphic novels that are more relevant to today’s movie goer than a Batman or Iron Man, these films have all taken on a hyperbolic aesthetic of fast cutting, expressive effects, and heightened melodrama.

Scot Pilgrim, it must be said, is wonderful. Edgar Wright somehow manages to direct it to and inch of its life. It’s ridiculously fast paced but still pitch perfect; the effects – videogame and comic book style overlays – are integral to the humour and style of the film yet would have been impossible to imagine in their full glory when working on set; and the performances retain exactly the right amount of knowing cool and awkward nerves. The editing in particular is stunning – time and location might change in the blink of an eye, often during a conversation, or actions are performed during a split second cut for comic juxtaposition – unseen, Scott instantaneously puts on his hat the second his hair is mentioned. It’s largely down to this incongruous editing that Scott Pilgrim creates a dream like, non-location and non-time specific feel – something which permits the spectacular fight scenes that embody the song and dance of a musical.

Scot Pilgrim is far from set in reality but with all fantasy films its exaggerations can prove apt metaphors for real life, at its simplest Scot Pilgrim is about the battles of growing up, of forming meaningful relationships – and it goes about it in a way that is more relevant to 2010 audiences than any comparable drama could be.