Too much special effects and a poor plot don't work well together.

Rating: 4/10 (24 September 2012)

Let me begin by stating that I don't know if Scott Pilgrim vs the World is either unique or weird. Probably both. Fact is, while watching it, I wasn't very entertained. See, I believe that if a movie has an interesting plot, deep and likable characters and witty dialog, it can get away with not having top-notch special effects. My main problem with Scott Pilgrim vs the World is that it fails in these three important aspects. As I watched the movie, all I got was special effects, and special effects, and more special effects. While these wouldn't have bothered me if the movie was good plot-wise, this is not the case.
The story revolves around Scott Pilgrim(Michael Cera), a slightly nerdy guy in his early twenties who is dating a girl in high school, Knives Chau(Ellen Wong). While everything was good at first, he starts to feel like she's too childish sometimes, and feels unhappy with his relationship. Then, he has a weird dream about a woman with purple hair, Ramona Flowers(Mary Elizabeth Winstead), whom he later meets at a party. They eventually start dating, and Scott finds out that in order to continue going out with Ramona, he must defeat her seven evil exes. Yes, seven evil exes, you read that right. Now, my main problem with the plot is how little importance they give to it, since after all of this has been explained the plot feels like an excuse to show off special effects in colorful fights. The fights itself are okay at first, but start to get repetitive after a while. It usually consists of Scott getting kicked around the area, then finding a miraculous way to save himself and win. Even with all the special effects, I eventually got bored of watching Scott go through brick walls and beating his enemies in the stupidest way possible(remember the words "vegan police").
Another thing that bothered me were the characters. While I liked Cera in movies like Superbad and Juno, his character here wasn't very likable, and often came off as annoying. Also, I didn't believe the chemistry between Scott and Ramona until the very end of the movie, it just felt unrealistic. And, yes, even though this isn't supposed to be a realistic movie, if I don't buy the interaction between the two main characters, then how am I supposed to enjoy the fights when I don't understand what they're fighting for? There's one character, Scott's sister Stacey(Anna Kendrick), that is completely useless. If she wasn't in the film, nobody would notice, and I assume they left her in for "comic relief". The only REAL comedy(and props to the actor)comes with Scott's gay roommate, Wallace(Kieran Culkin), who uses dry humor to entertain.
If I had to highlight the best part of Scott Pilgrim vs the World, it would be the quality of the effects. It's not like I'm changing my opinion all of a sudden, I never complained about their quality, I complained about their usage in the movie. Sin City, another movie based on a graphic novel(although much darker), managed to keep the visual flair inspired from the comics and added an excellent narrative to keep the viewer interested. Scott Pilgrim vs the World has the visual flair but has no narrative to keep us from leaving our seats.
I remember the days where all you needed was a good script to make an excellent movie(Pulp Fiction! Yay!), even if I wasn't even born at that time. Scott Pilgrim vs the World suffers from the now common disease of "many special effects equals good movie". It's colorful yet bland. It's annoying when it should be fun. Still, Scott Pilgrim vs the World isn't an awful movie, and I'm sure there are many people out there who think it's some sort of masterpiece, but if you're like me and enjoy good narrative over special effects, then you likely won't enjoy this movie.