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Rating: 4.5 stars

All movies seen on 08/19/2010

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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

Directed by Edgar Wright

Action | Comedy | Fantasy

Most recently watched by VicnaLobster, CaptainBigTime, sleestakk, sensoria, lordofthemovies, Javitron, danfinn, sammons, DaNiedabaya, jenerator

Overview

As bass guitarist for a garage-rock band, Scott Pilgrim has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. But when Ramona Flowers skates into his heart, he finds she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army of ex-boyfriends who will stop at nothing to eliminate him from her list of suitors.

Rated PG-13 | Length 113 minutes

Actors

Michael Cera | Mary Elizabeth Winstead | Ellen Wong | Kieran Culkin | Alison Pill | Mark Webber | Johnny Simmons | Jason Schwartzman | Anna Kendrick | Aubrey Plaza | Satya Bhabha | Chris Evans | Brandon Routh | Mae Whitman | Brie Larson | Keita Saito | Shota Saito | Will Seatle Bowes | Celine Lepage | Mark Leroy | Kerr Hewitt | Ben Lewis | Nelson Franklin | Kristina Pesic | Matt Watts | Ingrid Haas | Maurie W. Kaufmann | Marley Otto | Christine Watson | Chantelle Chung | Don McKellar | Jung-Yul Kim | Erik Knudsen | Abigail Chu | Tennessee Thomas | Emily Kassie | Michael Lazarovitch | John Patrick Amedori | Joe Dinicol | Craig Stickland | Bill Hader | Thomas Jane | Clifton Collins Jr. | Bryan Lee O'Malley

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

Edgar has yet to let me down.  With 2 original satire comedies under his belt (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World marks his first attempt at adapting someone else’s material.  This flick is based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s brilliant graphic novel series which is a mash up of hipster culture (and a satire of it), video game logic, and romance.  What’s brilliant about the film adaptation is it accents what is great about the graphic novel and totally makes a stand alone film with a visual flare unlike anything I’ve seen this year.

My only complaint with the film was that the love story between Scott Pilgrim and Ramona is pretty vapid.  I didn’t get a sense that Scott Pilgrim had enough actual passion for Ramona to do battle with 7 Evil Exes.  She was more of an obsession than a love interest here, and therefore I wasn’t invested at all in their relationship.  Michael Cera is fine as Scott Pilgrim (although he’s pretty grating as a whiney bitch for half the movie) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead does her best with what she’s given to do (which in the film, isn’t really a lot.  But, in the graphic novels, her character is much more fleshed out.)

So, with a love story and two lead characters as uninteresting as these, why did I love the movie so much? All the side characters, the visual style, the dialog, the commentary on video games and hipster culture and a kick-ass soundtrack make up for my gripes.  Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is unadulterated fun.  The dialog is crisp and funny, the story moves along at a brisk pace, and all the supporting characters are incredibly memorable.  This is a movie that takes all the tropes of 80’s 8-bit and 16-bit video games and realizes all those mechanics.  From 1Ups to defeated villans bursting into coins, there are so many video game references visualized pitch perfect.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is almost the perfect film.  A bit more development of the 2 main characters would have made this a perfect movie, but I’ll take what I can get here.  Edgar Wright is proving he’s a filmmaker worth paying attention to and a force to be reckoned with.  It’s a shame Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World bombed at the box office, but I’ll be picking this up on Blu Ray the second it’s released and re-watching it many many more times.

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