An Epic of Epic Epicness

Rating: 9/10 (12 September 2010)

After success in Britain making Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright has been given the chance to direct a Hollywood film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And Wright was does not disappoint with this action, comedy comic book adaptation.
Set in the Canadian city Toronto we follow our hero Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a slacker dating a 17-year-old high schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) and the bass guitarist for the Sex Bob-omb. But Scott is recovering from a nasty break up and he falls literally for the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). He tries to win her over, but there is a big problem, he has to defeat her seven evil exs, including Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha), Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh), Roxy Ritcher (Mae Whitman) and the worst of them all Gideon (Jason Schwartzman).
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a visually rich film, with Wright literally makes a live action comic book. He brings in the style of the comic book into the film with little visual touches like words coming up onto the screen, using images from the comic for telling some backstory to using panels to great affect. The fights were done with incredible skill and Wright employs the style of Capcom beat-'em-ups, with the opening of a fight shot like a landscape and used visual lettering like in though games. The fights were wonderfully shot and edited, with the camera placed in the right areas and shows that Paul Greengrass style shaky-cam and quick cutting is not needed: audiences want to see what happens in a fight scene. Wright also employ other video game references, like the extra life was reminded me of the Sonic the Hedgehog games I enjoyed in my youth, 3D beat-'em-ups like Virtual Fighter and Soul Calibur and arcade games like Donkey Kong. There is also a video game style score to go with the indie-rock preformed by the bands.
There is a great amount of comedy in the film. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World starts out a witty, dialogue that offers smiles and chuckles, but no real belly lasts: yet they include later on there are more jokes, involving clever observations, great characters, physical humour and how real young people. Wright and graphic novelist Bryan Lee O'Malley do understand both young people and how pop culture. Much of the humour is very sarcastic, particularly from the female characters.
There is a excellent cast. Cera gave his best performance as a slacker with personal baggage and well cast. Winstead too was brilliant as Ramona Flowers, leaves plenty of mystery in her character and well, she has a great body: I particularly like her fight with Whitman as Roxy Ritcher. Wong was good as Knives and also fun to look, I enjoyed her naïve young girl act who is just excited to be dating someone older but not confidence about doing anything with Scott. She grows as a character. Alison Pill and Anna Kendrick both offer a lot of sarcastic humour and do it very well: Pill did have a good supporting role but I would have liked to have seen more of Kendrick. Kieran Culkin had a good as Wallace Wells, Scott's gay roommate who is a gossip and willing to annoy people, but a good friend when it court. Culkin is smart simply plays the character as a normal man who happens to be gay, not a gay man, his performance was more natural that way. Out of the exs Schwartzman is perfectly slimy as the leader of evil exs, Routh was very funny as a dimwitted psychic with no morals and hopefully he will get to play Superman again and Evans was very good as an over the top action star with a deliberately gruff voice and speaking in action clichés. Whitman was also good in performance.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a excellent alternative comic book film, one of the best. It can stand along side films like Sin City and 300 and it is an excellent action-comedy. But I still think Kick-Ass is the best comic-book adaptation of 2010.