Release Date: 8/13/2010
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and based on the graphic novels, is an action adventure comedy that truly defines a comic book adaptation. It is packed with stylistic action sequences and very effective one-liners. It comes at you fast and never lets up until the end credits are done rolling. I went into this film knowing nothing about the comics and came out pleasantly surprised. Being a fan of Edgar Wright, I think he has developed another original and highly entertaining motion picture. This flick is a great way to spend 2 hours in the theater as the summer season soon comes to a close.
Scott Pilgrim played by Michael Cera has an awesome life. He’s 23 years old, in a rock band, “between jobs,” and dating a cute high schooler played by Ellen Wong. Everything’s fantastic until a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, delivery girl named Ramona Flowers played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. But Roman comes with some baggage, her seven evil exes stand between Scott and true happiness. With some good advice from his band, his gay roommate played by Kieran Culkin, and his sister played by Anna Kendrick. Scott must defeat all seven of the bad guys to get the girl without turning his life upside-down, before the game is over?
This film reminds me at times of Sin City, with the true comic book world coming to life on screen. The fight scenes were very similar without as much blood and violence but more as if it was a video game and Scott Pilgrim was defeating a boss. The only difference is this is a straight up comedy. It had me laughing a good bunch and mostly because of the fast paced, well-written one-liners that are delivered extremely well. The editing with the video game sound effects, inside jokes, and text flying all over the screen was something that I had never seen before in a movie. Gamers are going to absolutely love all the references, I picked up on a few but some definitely went right over my head. The director Edgar Wright stamps his style on the film in a big way, he finally makes a movie without his buddies Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and he still succeeds greatly. If anything the storyline is slightly cliché but with all the crazy effects and cool fight scenes it might not bother you too much. At the end I felt like the story could have been a bit better and the ending didn’t blow me away either. Having said that, I was still entertained for the duration.
The cast for the most part is decent. Michael Cera is usually hit or miss and a lot of people have been getting annoyed with him because he plays the same character. He isn’t really typecast again in this one because he’s actually playing more of a cool guy role, but the main difference is that he’s fighting off villains in big fight scenes, which I have never seen him do before. I’m not sure but I would have liked to see how a no name actor could have handled this part, I think some people might not buy it from Cera because of what they are use to seeing from him. He doesn’t ruin the film but he might take some people out of the story. The supporting roles are pretty good, Kieran Culkin is actually really funny in this as the gay roommate he had some great scenes with Michael Cera. Mary Elizabeth Winstead was kind of hot as the punky love interest and I’d like to see what she could do in a more serious role. Some of the boyfriends were kind of lame but Brandon Routh and Chris Evans were great in their over-the-top bad guy roles. Jason Schwartzman is great as usual and his character reminded me a lot of his performance in the movie Slackers when he played Cool Ethan.
So if you’re in then mood for a wild, entertaining, comic book comedy adaptation, that uses a video gamers mentality to portray its world, then check out Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It truly is an epic of epic epicness, and has just been STAMPED by this wiseguy.
IMDB: 7.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Moviewiseguys: 8.0/10
