Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I came to this films with no preconceptions of it as a movie and I have to say I am glad. I guess I was expecting another Michael Cera movie about some dopey kid in love. And thats what it is ... but done in a unusually great way. For anyone under 25 brought up on gaming (I am 30 and not) this will be just brilliant. The style of the movie with its "end of level baddies", game-play set-up and visuals are a welcome and refreshing twist on what could have been a hum-drum movie. The music rocked, the comedy was fast, slick and laugh out loud ... I'd definitely recommend this to my friends looking for something that little bit special.

I guess I am not the age demographic that this film is based at but I liked it. My daughter loves it, she even made me by her the DVD.

Scott Pilgrim is a magical realism/fantasy teen comedy with pop art video game visuals. Deep in its heart its just a hip, flashy teen romantic comedy.

Edgar Wright better known as the director of the Cornetto Trilogy adapts this comic book series like it was an edgy fast paced pseudo Japanese video game.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) plays bass in his garage rock band Sex Bob-omb who meets his dream girl Ramona Flowers (Elizabeth Mary Winstead) who is new in town. However he is soon pursued by Ramona's seven evil exes who all challenge Scott Pilgrim to a duel and Scott needs to keep them in check with his zaps and zingers Streetfighter style.

Cera has the right balance of geeky, slacker dude, Canadian hipster charm as Scott Pilgrim who is very likable even though he quickly ditched High School student Knives for Ramona.

The Evil Exes are a colourful bunch with some star names amongst them. Chris Evans is a skateboarding movie star whose entrance is accompanied with the Universal Pictures theme tune. Jason Schwartzman is a megalomaniac record producer. Brandon Routh is a pretentious vegan rock star with the ability to fly just like Superman.

There is a lot of scene stealing in this film like Kieran Culkin as Scott's sneaky gay roommate, Anna Kendrick as Scott's sister and particularly Ellen Wong as Knives the slightly too young ditched girlfriend who is still loyal to Scott.

I actually found this to be a fast moving, quirky, rocking, enjoyable comedy drama.

Scott Pilgrim versus the World is a Canadian romantic comedy and musical based on the comic books by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Scott Pilgrim is a 22y.o teen-age-looking insecure guy and guitarist who plays in a rock band called Sex Bom-omb and is going out with a minor high-school Chinese girl, Knives. He seems content until he has a dream about a girl. She happens to appear in his real world in the form of Ramona, the ever-changing-hair-colour American recently moved to Toronto. Scott is over the moon, but he has to face his own personal demons, break up with sweet Knives and fight for Ramona's love against her seven exes.

Scott Pilgrim is one of the most refreshing teen-sophomore movies produced in the last years, and one the best movies of 2010. The movie is cute, funny, entertaining, has great characters, a terrific soundtrack and stunning visuals. The story is presented as in a video-game in which the main characters are the players, and their lives is the game. The issues regarding relationships are masqueraded by the video-game approach, but they have depth. Unlike many other movies focusing on the emotional challenges of very young people, sex is not the focus, although it does not avoid it either. The movie focus on how difficult is to make a relationship work when you fall in love whit people who already have an emotional baggage and you are insecure about yourself. Scott's fights against Ramona's exes are just a metaphoric way of putting it. Moreover, the emotions of the girl are not the focus here, but the emotions of a young man who is not obsessed with sex. How do you get a girl who has an emotional baggage when you are not an over-confident guy, your dream girl is uber-cool, and her exes were brilliant guys? The good thing is that any of this is boringly presented. On the contrary, the movie is lots of fun and does not take itself seriously.

All the actors are great in their roles: Michael Cera as Scott, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers, Ellen Wong as Knives Chau; Mark Webber, Johnny Simmons and Alison Pill as the other band members Stephen, Young and Kim. Kieran Culkin is Scott's confident grounded gay Wallace Wells, Anna Kendrick as the know it all Scott's sister Stacey, and Jason Schwartzman as the revolting Gideon Graves. However, Cera really shines in this movie, in part because his physique really portraits the character from the start.

The visuals of the movie are stunning, the camera's movement, the video-game and comic use of the screen adding to the freshness and originality of the film. The fights wit the exes are extremely funny and witty. I specially liked the fight with the Vegan ex-boyfriend, which is hilarious. Also visually stunning is the musical competition between Scott's rock band and the techno Asian twins band.

The music is truly terrific. An extra bonus to a great script.

Scott Pilgrim vs the Wold movie is not only well done but done with passion, a project cherished by the whole team and by director Edgar Wright.

The movie has freshness, soul and a special something that stays with you longer after you've seen it! It is miles away from any other young people romantic comedy lately made.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a twenty-something slacker living in Toronto, who basically leeches off his friends. Despite being in a "relationship" with Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), he keeps dreaming about another girl. He quickly finds out this dream girl, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), is actually quite real, and decides to pursue her. But before they can truly become the couple Scott hopes for, he has to defeat her seven evil exes.

I did not think it was possible, but Edgar Wright has fairly successfully brought Bryan Lee O'Malley's epic graphic novel series to the big screen in the most uniquely entertaining way possible. It is his first adapted work, but it feels every bit as fresh (I use that word very loosely) as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz did upon their initial releases. It deviates from the books a bit (much like Matthew Vaughn's excellent adaptation of Kick-Ass earlier this year), but the majority of the film stays true to the series and gives the fans everything they might expect from a Scott Pilgrim film. Right after the film opening with an 8-bit Universal logo and score, you know you are in for a treat.

What propels Wright's epic and inspired vision is the editing style. All of the little idiosyncrasies, background/foreground items and ideas, everything that made O'Malley's books so revered in the graphic novel community are all in full force here. Some shots in the trailers suggest the comic book-style feel of the film, with the sounds of the actions appearing as words on-screen and the video game-related pop-ups appearing the same way they would in the game. But that is only the start. The entire film is filled with them, and with references to numerous pop culture entities (specifically video games), to the point that it looks and sounds like a ridiculously enhanced motion comic or game. Add to that the quick cuts and multiple panel style of the format, and you have the closest film representation of a comic since Robert Rodriguez attacked Frank Miller's Sin City.

Even with all the nods and references to the original work, Wright's film still feels very much his own work. He makes Scott Pilgrim's epic quest to defeat Ramona's exes into an understated work you will likely not see replicated too soon. After seeing Christopher Nolan's Inception just under a week ago, I did not think that mainstream Hollywood would release something so blazingly original and something so astonishly unique so close together. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is not nearly as strong a film as Nolan's masterpiece is, but Wright has clearly given it his all here. He has sidestepped away from following the lead of other comic book/graphic novel-style films, and has created something he can truly be proud of. The visuals on display are simply remarkable, and are worth the price of a ticket all on their own. The musical choices are even better. If you have seen the trailers, you are merely only getting a hint for what Wright has in store for you here.

If I do have an issue, it is that the film is a little too exposition-heavy in the first half, and way too jumpy in the second. It never loses its tone or its style, but it becomes all too blatantly obvious where the books stop and the deviation begins. The pacing here is also a touch off, and on further research, thoroughly suggests there is material missing or altered from the final cut of the film. I understand that Wright and his co-writer Michael Bacall wanted to set-up the story and where it plans on going for the few who venture into the film without having read a single issue, but there is too much detail given in those early scenes, and not enough to pivotal moments later in the film.

Another gripe, although it is one I hope will be less bothersome on repeat viewings, is that a good chunk of the characters feel incredibly underused. The books are stacked to the brim with an eclectic mix of supporting characters, who are present in the film, but they feel very stunted and get absolutely no development. Kim Pine (Alison Pill) is a very important character in the books, but she merely appears in the background here and delivers some of the best dialogue. Wallace Wells (the absolutely incredible scene-stealer Kieran Culkin) is the moral centre and source of an incredible amount of exposition, but he is barely in the film after the first half. Envy Adams (Brie Larson) almost feels like an extended cameo as opposed to an indispensible figure in Scott's character development. But then, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh and especially Jason Schwartzman all deliver stunning performances as three of Ramona's exes, despite the lack of time on-screen.

Cera on the other hand, is perfect as Pilgrim. The character plays a little too close to his stereotypical neurotic and off-centre archetype, but it works out beautifully here. He makes the character real, and brings a depth to Scott Pilgrim that no other young actor could. He has the right look and the right sound down pat. It was a little weird to see him get so physical in some sequences, but this is a vintage fit for Cera. Although they are downplayed more than I liked, Winstead and Wong are great as Ramona and Knives. They both have a certain edge throughout the film, and even at its most ridiculous, deliver strong performances. It helps too that they have insanely good chemistry with Cera.

I jumped at the idea of an advanced screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and I do not regret seeing the film in the slightest. It is a bit of a niche movie, but it is one that is lovingly made through and through.

8/10.

(An extended review also appeared on http://www.geekspeakmagazine.com).

There is no other movie quite like Scott Pilgrim. It's like watching a comic book video game put to screen. The action is insane, over the top and super high energy with wonderfully creative framing and visual cues.

Going back and watching it again, it's amazing how many people are in this before they were huge. Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick just to name a few. The visuals still hold up, as does the pointed commentary on hipsters.

Great music, great action, great performances. It's all around a fantastic experience. The only real downside to me is that it's based on something with a lot of content and in an effort to put a lot in here there are some moments that feel... Off. Areas where the graphic novel likely went into great detail yet the movie has to just sort of pop it in and run with it. These are mostly minor but it still prevents this from being absolutely perfect.