Visual video game experience is great!

Rating: 9/10 (22 December 2010)

Movies turned video games have a tendency to suck a lot more than they should, though many of them do have great potential to be turned in video games. Video games turned into movies have a tendency to suck as well, but in a good way. I have no idea why, but more often than not, a movie adaptation of a video game manages to entertain me. As a result, I enjoyed Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time (though not being a great film) and Doom (I rated Doom a 9.0 back when I was a snotty little 12 year-old brat, but even today Doom can still manage to entertain me). When I first saw a trailer for this before the excellent Toy Story 3 this summer, the first thing I said to myself was ''Damn this is gonna suck'', and even when the first reviews, who were mainly over positive, came out, I still wasn't interested in viewing this film. But having rented this film just a few hours ago, and in fact just a few minutes after the viewing, I thought I might just write a review for it.
I've never read a Scott Pilgrim comic before, so I can't exactly say how faithful the film is to the comic books. But from what I saw in the movie, the story was great. We've all seen this story before, of an ordinary guy who is in love with a girl, but who must stand up to her boyfriend (usually two or three times the main character's size) in order to win her heart. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World makes our hero, an everyday normal guy (played by Cera, an actor I like very much), fall in love with crazy, colourful-haired Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). But to gain her love, he must defeat her ''Seven evil x's'' (yes you read right. Not ex-boyfriends, just X's).
Straight on you can say that the cast is perfect for this kind of film. It's really hard to see anybody else than Micheal Cera fill the shoes of Scott Pilgrim. He gives one of his most dynamic performances up to date, and he is definitely one of the good points of the film. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is an actress I did not know very well (besides her supporting role in ''Live Free or Die Hard''), but she also portrayed Ramona quite beautifully. In fact all the actors in this film play their roles to the maximum without ever over acting, they just always seem to have the right amount of character in their roles.
This is a film that will probably appeal mostly to teenage boys (like me) and their parents, who grew up during the NES generation. Back when the consoles only had a two-dimensional Mario character who would jump once in a while to get a penny, or stomp an evil mushroom. Being 14 years old (soon going on 15 :D), I am a person who, before buying his first console at the age of 9 (a Nintendo Gamecube), played with his dad's old NES. Even today, when I'm not on X-Box Live playing Madden, Call of Duty, NHL or a variety of other titles, I do plug out this old NES and, believe it or not, I do have a lot of fun with it. Therefore, those who have already experienced the NES will be delighted by the amount of references to old consoles this film makes. Whether the main character beats up bad guys and makes money out of it, or the opening Universal logo shown in 2-D, this film makes the most of gaming references.
Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) also takes comic-book adaptation to a whole other level. This film has comic book adaptation written all over it, but that's mostly due to the references it makes to comic books when it is not referencing video games. The typical ''BAM!'' shown when the character hits a baddie. The visual effects were super, and though I'm not really a geek, I do have to say that Mary Elizabeth Winstead with her purple/blue/green hair was hot. Though some of the gags fell flat on a few occasions, most of them brought smiles, chuckles and laughs to me and my 10 year old sister. The visual effects were super. Definitely going to buy this one, and while this might be a real turn down for some, geeks and parents who experienced NES games and read many comic books during their youth should have a great time watching this film.