Scott Pilgrim vs The World is about a young Canadian slacker (Michael Cera; Arrested Development, Superbad) who falls for the mysterious American Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead; Death Proof, Live Free or Die Hard) but in order to date her he’ll have to fight and defeat her 7 evil exes.  This movie is directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) who also co-wrote with Michael Bacall.  The movie is based on the series of 6 graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley.  The comics rely heavily on video game influences along with combining real locations and situations in with crazy sci-fi and action sequences.

I have to start off this review by saying I’ve been waiting for this movie ever since I heard it announced.  I’ve been very much looking forward to it.  The comics, which only last month ended, are in my opinion some of the best graphic novels I’ve ever read.  They’re really funny, unique, and entertaining.  So this movie had a lot to live up to for me.  As soon as the trailers ended and an 8-bit Universal logo complete with 8-bit music started I knew at least something was right.  And it only got better from there.  I can honestly say this is one of the most worthy of your money films I’ve seen in a long time and also that it’s going to be incredibly divisive.  Some people will love Scott Pilgrim vs The World (which is the title of the second book) and others will hate it.

I think maybe the right way to start this off is to tell you some of my worries going into this movie being a fan of the comics, in case anyone is in a similar situation and shares any of these thoughts.  First from the very beginning I hated Mary Elizabeth Winstead being cast as Ramona Flowers, the girl Scott fights 7 evil exes for.

Alison Pill embodies Kim Pine

Just from the trailers I didn’t get the “Ramona” vibe from her.  But once I saw her in the film my mind was totally changed.  She rocked this role hard.  She played the awesome parts of Ramona as well as the not so awesome parts (Ramona is actually a very three dimensional character if you read the whole saga) and did it all with ease.  I’ll use this opportunity to talk about the rest of the cast, as there are a lot of people in this movie and even the tiny parts are pretty important.  I really doubted a few casting choices but there was not a single weak link.  I have to give insane love to Kieran Culkin who plays Wallace Wells, Scott’s gay roommate, and who nailed the role here.  Also doing a great job was Alison Pill as Kim Pine, a former girlfriend of Scott’s who’s now the drummer in his band. She gave me shivers every time she shouted “We are Sex Bob-omb!!!” and really brought that character to life.  Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, Scott’s 17 year old high school girlfriend is killer and will probably land a ton of roles after her performance in this movie.  The other killer performance is courtesy of Mark Webber as Stephen Stills, lead singer of Scott’s band.  He also really brought that character to life.  Anna Kendrick has a tiny role as Scott’s sister Stacey, but every time she’s onscreen it’s worthy of a smile, the same goes for the equally small role of Stephen’s girlfriend Julie played by Aubrey Plaza.  Brie Larson kills as Scott’s ex and lead singer of The Clash At Demonhead, Envy Adams (she sings in the movie too!).  And of course I’d be remiss for not mentioning how great Michael Cera is as the title character, but he was no surprise.

Some of the ensemble

Then we have the 7 evil exes.  All of their roles are pretty great.  I thought the weak link here was Mae Whitman.  She was good but not great and didn’t really embody her role like some of the others.  Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, Satya Bhabha, Keita Saitou, & Shota Saito are all great.

The 7 Evil Exes

OK so now that we’ve established the performances were top notch let’s move on to another worry I had.  The movie is only 112 minutes, but there’s 6 whole books worth of material to pack into it.  The graphic novels aren’t short either, they’re all a pretty good length.  So I was worried about losing too much for the sake of cramming a lot of stuff in.  Luckily Edgar Wright is a crazy genius and that wasn’t the case here.  While you do lose bits and not every single moment of every single book is here, a lot of it is intact as drawn.  But they cut down a lot of the storylines that weren’t totally Scott related and they changed some things to make things easier.  It is a movie and you just cannot fit everything in, but all the really important stuff managed to stay there and stay there well.

Now here’s the part that’s gonna divide people, the whole style of the film.  It’s brilliantly shot by DP Bill Pope (The Matrix) and edited by Jonathan Amos & Paul Machliss, but Edgar Wright really went with the feel of the books, bringing them to life and some people are just not going to love it.  If you’re a fan of video games, comic books, rock music, and sarcasm then you’ll be in love.  If not this might not be the movie for you.  There’s a lot of fast cuts and the dialogue is whip-smart complete with rapid fire jokes that deliver a laugh every other line for the first half of the movie.  There’s a lot of loud music, bright colors and fantastic occurrences and things like a scene shot like a sitcom (Seinfeld specifically) and video game sound effects.  All of this is great.  Every second of it.  But it might be not what certain people like or can get into.  This isn’t a movie for everyone.  It’s really sort of niche and that’s ok but you have to know this going in.  If you geek out over things like Comic Cons then you’re probably the right audience for this.

I’m almost done with this review, but I have to touch on 2 more things.  First this may be Edgar Wright’s masterpiece.  He’s done some incredible stuff before, but he pulls out everything in his directorial and pop culture arsenal here.  He really brings these books to life in a way I never thought possible.  He manages to make a great comic book movie and at the same time make perhaps the first good video game movie ever.  He just made so many brilliant choices in every single aspect of the production and you see it in every frame.  In fact everyone who had a hand in this production should give themselves a pat on the back.  The production design, the wardrobe, it all brings life to the books but also packs each frame with tons of stuff.  Also I liked that even with some quick cutting Wright and Co weren’t afraid to occasionally go to black and throw the audience for a little bit of a loop, like in a nice sequence from Scott’s point of view.  Also they did a great job keeping this manageable.  It sort of ramps up.  It starts pretty basic and the effects and taking us out of the normal world come in more and more as we progress and also things start happening much quicker as the movie moves on.  But the movie never feels too long and you leave satisfied that you got a full experience, no hanging to a sequel here.

The final thing I have to talk about is the movie’s soundtrack.  Above you have Edgar Wright talking about it and how different real bands wrote and did the songs for the fictitious bands.  Like Beck doing all the Sex Bob-omb songs and Metric doing The Clash At Demonhead song (which you can see a clip of above as well).  In the movie these are voiced by the actors but not on the soundtrack oddly.  I would have liked those versions at least alongside.  If you buy the album on iTunes you apparently get the full scene of The Clash At Demonhead (fronted by Brie Larsen) performing Metric’s” Black Sheep” (although I can’t find it, here’s a link to the whole thing online).  But more than that, the music is a big part of the comics but in that medium you don’t get the full effect like you do here and it adds a whole new dimension to the piece.  In fact the music is too good and it ruins the joke that Sex Bob-omb are supposed to suck.  Anyway go and get this sound track right now on or Amazon.

Overall I recommend you see this movie, and not only to see it but to go and see it in theaters.  The sound and the visuals are theater worthy, or if you’re gonna wait or are reading this after it’s left theaters at least go with Blu-ray.

Also check out the all the original graphic novels on your iPhone/iTouch or iPad