“Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” Movie Review

It's the classic story of "Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy has to fight girl's seven evil exes and then boy and girl live happily ever after.  What?  You've never hear that one?  Geez, you're behind on the times.

The way this story is told is with frames from a comic book, at times even including sound effects as words on the screen ala "Batman" (The Original TV Series). Also gamers will recognize the familiarly beautiful sound effects of many beloved games and even treated to anime references throughout the movie.  For people that don't know Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is an adaptation of the much celebrated graphic novel series about the hero, Scott Pilgrim.

In the movie adaptation, Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22 year-old who has no job, plays bass in a band, Sex Bo-Bomb (Super Mario Bros. reference), lives with his gay friend, Wallace (Kieran Culkin), and is dating a 17 year-old asian Catholic high-school girl (The stereotypical love interest in most anime).  Pilgrim is quite happy with his new girlfriend and how his life is going until one night he has a dream about a girl with pink hair.  

The next day Scott finds out that the pink-haired girl from his dream, Ramona, is indeed real and not a fiction of his imagination.  Scott convinces the girl to go on a date with him which doesn't end badly and he talks her into coming to see his band play.

Enter the first of the seven evil exes.  It is here that Scott realizes he must fight for the pink-haired girl of his (literally) dreams.  Everything in the world seems pretty normal before this scene, then you realize you're watching a movie set in a comic-book world where everyone has superpowers. Scott's sister looks at everyone and just has this "WTF" face (Which is exactly how I felt when this part of the movie happened).  No, it's not realistic, but it's fun.  You came to be entertained, sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

I won't go any further than that, and I hope I didn't give too much away for you.  Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) did a great job adapting the books and directing this movie.  The comedic timing that was overly evident in his other movies come through in this movie.  I'm only sorry we didn't see a cameo from Simon Pegg.

It's definitely a different movie, but refreshing and it's the best thing I've seen since "Kick-Ass", but it actually makes that movie look boring by comparison.   If you haven't seen this movie yet, go NOW!!!!

3 1/2 out of 4 Stars