Friday, January 14, 2011

'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World' gets an A+ in my book

I finally got the chance to watch “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” the other day, and I have to say that this is the best movie that I’ve seen in a while.

Maybe it’s because this isn’t your typical movie.

Filled with unusual and often totally bizarre special effects, including homages to comic books and early 1990s video games, this movie is like a musical, except that the characters suddenly break out into outrageous fight scenes instead of songs.

Based on the graphic novel series, “Scott Pilgrim,” by Bryan Lee O’Malley, the movie, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” was released in the U.S. on Aug. 13, 2010.

Directed by Edgar Wright, the movie stars Michael Cera (who plays the role of Scott Pilgrim and who many of you will remember from “Superbad”), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who was also in “Final Destination 3”), Kieran Culkin (Macaulay Culkin’s brother), Ellen Wong (who is best known for her role as Knives Chau in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”), Alison Pill (who was in “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen”), Mark Webber (who was in “Snow Day”), Johnny Simmons (who was born in Montgomery and was in “Evan Almighty”) and Anna Kendrick (who is best known for playing Jessica Stanley in the Twilight Saga film series).

For those of you who have not seen “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” it’s about a young Canadian guitarist named Scott Pilgrim, who meets the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, her ex-boyfriends (and one ex-girlfriend) have teamed up to form “The League of Evil Exes.” In video game fashion, as Pilgrim navigates through the movie, he has to defeat each of the “seven evil exes” in order to win the heart of the girl of his dreams.

This movie was a lot of fun to watch, and the special effects and ridiculous plot twists only added to the experience. Once you realize that you shouldn’t take the movie too seriously, it becomes real easy to enjoy the hilarity of it all. Watching the movie also left me with a desire to check out the graphic novel series.

The graphic novel series ran between August 2004 and July 2010 and was issued in six digest-sized volumes. If you’re interested in looking them up on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, the titles of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, in order of publication, are “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” “Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness,” “Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe” and “Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour.”

According to the Internet Movie Database, the “original concept for ‘Scott Pilgrim’ was based around two premises: What if, after a life of playing fighting games, someone confronted you and you actually had the ability to fight like a ‘Street Fighter’ character? And also Bryan Lee O’Malley’s then-girlfriend (now wife) Hope Larson having, at one time, dated three different guys named Matthew. From that, the concept of a League of Matthew's was devised.”

In the end, I really enjoyed this movie, and I give it an A+ in my book. Have any of you had a chance to see this movie? If so, what did you think about it? Did you like it? Dislike it? Let us know in the comments section below.

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