Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

A while back, I saw the trailer for the movie, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. I thought, "Wow, that looks pretty cool." Then I stumbled upon the internet, where everyone was, how do you say, FLIPPING OUT. I hadn't been made aware of Scott Pilgrim's basis in the realm of comic books, which, needless to say, only made me like it more. It was drawn and written by Bryan Lee O'Malley, who though I hadn't heard of him, had a really cool style that appealed to my cartoon loving self. This happened to be all around my birthday, and with not much else on my birthday list, I decided to ask for the first 3 books. I was hooked. The protagonist, Scott Pilgrim, is a 20 something, with no job, a few friends, and is lost in life with the exception of his band. He's also comically slow witted. I took a liking to him immediately. I bought the next 2 books, and eagerly awaited the 6th and final book to come out last month.

With such a great love for the books, having now read and enjoyed them all tremendously, the trailers (one in particular) were increasingly amazing as scenes from the movie were almost panel for panel with the comic books. With such a faithful representation, and being directed by the awesome Edgar Wright, who some of you might remember from directing Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz, the entire nerd community, yours truly included, was throughly stoked.

After letting the movie marinate in my brain juices all weekend I have decided that they had every right to be. Due to time constraints, the story of the movie closely parallels the first three books, then takes its own course, but it remains very faithful regardless. The story is about the previously mentioned Scott, played by Michael Cera, who meets Ramona, and in order to date her has to defeat her Seven Evil Ex's. Video game and pop culture references commence.

The little nods and the amount of references was incredible and vast, from Zelda's Great Fairy Fountain to the Seinfeld scene switch music. The cinematography was also incredible, mimicking the stylized drawing of the books, but at the same time making it aesthetically pleasing and often times hilarious. The mash up of movie stereotypes and the line blurring of comedy, drama and action film with a handful of references interspersed was incredible.

The action scenes were equally as well done. The fighting was as good as I've seen in kung-fu movies nowadays, but was done over a layer of video game stylization, which was what really made me like it. I caught myself during a few of these action scenes thinking, "Wow. I love this movie." I mean, when you have Micheal Cera fighting a legion of bosses, while getting 64 hit combos and coins for defeating them, you know you've just made fanboys' days worldwide.

As I said earlier the subtle sound clues are really good, but at the same time, Scott's band, Sex Bob-Omb plays an integral part in the plot, so there's a lot of music played in the movie, almost all of it written and performed by Beck. I'm no Beck fan, but boy! I really dug the music in this movie. To the point where I am deeply considering downloading the OST off of iTunes. It's that good you audiophiles.

However there are a few detractors. I loved this movie, because I got all the jokes, the subtle little nods, and could kinda empathize with the characters' situation being a 20 year old myself. But if you haven't played a video game in your life, you'll be missing out on a lot of these jokes. The movie is still good on the surface, but it was the little things, and emphasis on detail that really made this movie, "An epic of epic epicness."

If you're in the teens, twenties, or thirties possibly, I'd say this film is right in your wheel house if you like romantic action comedies. Yes, that is the label I am giving this film. Actually, I'm going to call it a romantic nerd action comedy. I am also going to give this film a 9.5 out of 10. I could really watch this movie again. And again. And possibly again. But I might need to pee at some point. But then I'd definitely watch it again. Go see it.

GAME OVER