When I first watched the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, I had little or no idea what was going on. At first it appeared to be just another Michael Cera (Superbad, Juno) comedy where he plays an awkward teen with a very typical love interest, quite a trend in his movies, but then suddenly there was an explosion of crazy stuff I simply wasn’t expecting; video game sound and visual effects, street fighter style fight scenes, and a whole bunch of vintage gaming homages. This was suddenly a film that I really wanted to see!

As you can gather from the trailer, the story of the film is of Scott Pilgrim, a regular guy in his early 20’s and in a rock band. After a few weeks of trying to be cool and suave in front of his new girlfriend, he meets someone new, cool, and right up his alley – Ramona Flowers; the purple-haired girl of his dreams (literally). After some chance meetings involving some awkward social interaction, they somehow end up on a date.

Ramona's seven evil ex's, in no particular order

It all seems to go rather quickly and smoothly until, before you know it, Scott finds himself in the middle of a fast-paced and explosive fight with a weird looking emo guy who turns out to be the first of Ramona’s seven evil ex’s.  This is essentially repeated throughout the movie, and is cleverly done in a way that subtly reflects the concept of levels in video games that are included with a totally unique and increasingly difficult ‘boss’ for Pilgrim to fight at the end of each.

Each of the fight scenes throughout the film are truly spectacular

The fight scenes in this film were what grabbed my attention most noticeably. They are truly awesome, with some of the best comic-book style effects (think Batman’s ‘POW!’ and ‘WHAM!’ bits during fights) I’ve seen in any TV show or film before. And no, that doesn’t mean it’s cheesy or tacky – it’s done in such a cool way that I felt nothing but total awe at the huge smashes and crashes involved in the high octane fist fights and battles. You know when you hear a song or see a scene in a movie that you like so much and you get those weird tingles? (no, not that kind, you pervert) Well I got those during every single duel between Scott and his rivals, because none of them failed to totally blow my mind.

I’ve harped on a bit about the action and fighting in this movie quite a bit, but I’ve so far failed to even mention the humor!  I can’t say much more than that the whole story is just so crammed full of top-notch, hilarious jokes, that every moment that was supposed to be funny succeeded in making me laugh out loud.  One particular scene that pokes a little fun at extreme vegan-ism (and a small section involving the vegan police squad) had me completely in stitches, and could probably be appreciated by even those it jokes at.

This particular shot is taken right out of the comic book. Brilliant!

I haven’t actually read the comic book myself, but after I saw the movie, I took a little look in the book store and found it. I wanted to see exactly how similar the style of the movie was to the content of the book, and let me tell you, they’ve managed to extract some of the key scenes from the book so well – and done them so much justice – that I’m utterly amazed they pulled it off without it looking so cheap. I only flicked through the book, mind, but what I saw from the main parts of it, it was all true to the story, the characters, and the action.

The battle of the bands is an effects-riddled music battle

What I found in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was an amazing – yes, AMAZING – movie that I can safely and easily place right near the top of my favorite films. It’s funny, fresh, action-packed, clever, witty, and completely worth every penny you’ll spend going to see it. I’m even tempted to go see it a second time, and not even the awesomeness that was Inception got me to do that. This film is truly a spectacle of original movie goodness that deserves a dedicated viewing by anybody and everybody.

I give Pilgrim 10/10, 5 gold stars, and the BcR seal of approval.  I simply can’t big up this film any more than that, so if you don’t see this movie, may your soul rot in hell for all eternity.