Going on this bass-playing irritant’s ability to whine, it’s hardly surprising that the world, including Ramona Flowers’s seven evil exes, wants to kick his ass. If he was here, there’s a contingent of Sound-Screen that would join in (figuratively, of course). Ok, well may be it’s just me. 

Michael Cera as a sword-swinging indie-geek taking on macho-alpha-males, and winning; Edgar Wright let loose on a mainstream comic book adap with a multi-million budget; acres of movie-video-game etc references; a kick-ass soundtrack – so why do I not share in the love in? Here’s why.  

While there is much to celebrate in Wright’s smash-tastic romp, I can’t help but find Mr Pilgrim just too smug, too self-centered and far too annoying to root for. Superficial, with little to no regard for others (my heart goes out to poor, innocent Knives), and, it has to be said, just the bass player in a band that plain sucks, his ‘unassailable cool’ is lost on me as he indulges himself in his own pointless, self-fabricated tortured-ness. Drummer Kim is far cooler, and would make a far better protagonist, should a sequel or spin-off ever come around.

The film won plaudits the world over, both critical and fan praise but, as the suits will highlight, it lost out big time at the box office, recouping just over half of its reported $90 million budget. But while it missed the money, so to speak, it scored big with those keen to hail both it and its bushy-haired, unlucky-in-love, ex-ercising protagonist as champion of all that is theirs. Give me the League of Evil Exes any day. Or is it just me?

By Alasdair Morton