Back when the Scott Pilgrim movie came out I was really hesitant to see it and I decided to go ahead and read all the books first and then make the call. So when it came to the school’s $1 theater a friend and I saw it and well, I think I liked the comics better, but since I didn’t like those that much that’s not a good sign.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Summary: Scott Pilgrim is a loser with a boring life, no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise. But his life gets a lot more interesting once he starts dating Ramona Flowers and discovers that he has to defeat her seven evil-exes or give her up.
The Good: The books never had a ton of plot (a basic quest tying the story together but that was about it) and in the respect the movie is fine. All the fights are in, some of then have more explanation than others (like in the books) and the last fight wasn’t that bad (considering that the last book wasn’t out until just before the movie came out). The fights were pretty cool actually but more on that below, so the visuals and music were solid. I still liked a lot of the side characters but, well, that's where the bad part comes in.
The Bad: I really don’t like Scott Pilgrim (the character), even though he was less of an ass in this movie. In the books I was a bit apathetic about Ramona but the compression of time in the movie really didn’t help her character. The books are set over a series of months and it felt natural there that she and Scott became closer, the movie however is set over a few weeks so I had a hard time understanding why she liked him. The movie also really killed the character development or backstory time that many of the side characters got (and they were always my favorite characters in the books) so I had no one to connect to and just didn’t care what happened to the characters.
The Music: I’m not really a fan of 8-bit video game music so no comments on that, but I did like the insert song by Envy Adams. Not much to say beyond that, the music worked but nothing really stuck out to me.
The Visuals: I enjoyed watching the fight scenes much more than I was expected and I’ll concede that those were worth the one-dollar admission. I don't really understand why people make a live action adaptation of an illustrated medium and normally I don't like the extra effects thrown in as if to say “hey guys, this comes from a comic book!” but it worked here. The fight scenes were fast paced, vibrant and fun to watch. So kudos for the visuals, it was my favorite part of the movie.
When I finished seeing this movie and I had the unhappy feeling that I had wasted a perfectly good evening and had no intention of seeing it again. So, no re-watch or buy for me, hopefully I have better luck with movies this year.
