Scott Pilgrim vs the World: Hipster Trash or Glorious Nerdom?

For the longest time, various fans of comics, video games, and other form of nerdity have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Based off the comic series of the same name, trailers portrayed the film in a form that at first made me think "Oh, just another boy meets girl movie. Well, time to move on to the next big mo-" And then suddenly there's Evil Super powered boyfriends involved. Trailers don't do that often, so this film certainly peaked alot of peoples' interests. Is it glorious nerdom or just hipster trash?

Story: The general plot of Scott Pilgrim follows a simple boy meets girl scenario, with our lead character falling in love with the majestic (if not just very out of the ordinary) looking Ramona Flowers, and that is where the typical boy meets girl path begins to veer off into something completely different and that's main because of one thing. Ramona has seven evil ex-boyfriends that Scott must defeat in order for the two to continue dating.

If that No More Heroes-like synopsis alone doesn't catch your attention, I hate to say I don't know what will. The plot is generally silly, told through some good editing as well as humorous dialogue and over the top action sequences.

The first fifteen or so minutes however drag on a bit much as it sets up the characters in a what is a fairly normal representation of the town they live in and then suddenly! BAM! Unrealistic fighting out of nowhere! This may sound odd, but I much preferred the movie when it didn't try to act normal. The movie is at it's finest when the most ridiculous things happen and the movie rolls with it to it's finest.

The plot itself centers around not only the idea that love can make people conquer all hardships and that if you love something, you sometimes have to fight for it, but it's also a story of emotional maturity and that the major characters develop into full fledged adults that aren't so toying with love. That's the general idea behind the plot, however, there are some problems that I personally found with these characters.

Characters: The casting in the movie is near perfect with the majority of the characters being relatively interesting. We of course has Ramona with her interesting backstory of her seven evil exes, and while she comes out as emotionless, there's a charm behind her actress' performance that makes her amusing to watch, plus she's fun to watch when fighting herself. Her seven evil exes are also interesting and amusing characters, ranging from a hip, black-eyed magic practitioner, to a psychic 'super vegan', to a pair of musicians that fight with their music. These villains, while their moments are more or less condensed to the one or few scenes that they're in, are expressed fully and gives memorable performances.

Another major character is Knives, a high school chinese student who is very energetic and full of life, when she's on screen. The character is very cute and she ranks as one of my personal favorites in the movie overall, due to her preppy personality. My favorite character however would have to be Wallace, Scott's roommate and the gay character of the movie and where the character could've been portrayed very stereo typically, he's shown in a unique expression where it's frequently shown that he's gay, but at the same time, it's not shoved down viewer's throats. He's also very humorously in how he explains the situation so simply and in a deadpan expression.

There is really only one 'bad' character and this ultimately is my one major grievance about the film. Where in No More Heroes, we have Travis who is a grade-a ass hole, shouldn't be revered or liked and yet, he's become one of the video game staples that various nerds admire because he's so confident in his actions, even if they're obviously the wrong ones.

Alternately, Scott himself is my least favorite character in this movie. It's not so much the character is completely unlikable, but he comes off as this really awkward jerkass of a character, despite how hypocritical that sounds. In fact, I didn't care or was interested in Scott for a good half of the movie. He has some amusing moments like learning the bass line to the Final Fantasy 2 battle theme, but he himself just isn't that interesting. This is intentional, however, as it fits with the theme of maturity, but here's a theory: You can be a jerkass and still be interesting to watch or listen to, but if you're fumbling over your own words while trying to pick up a chick, using a story on the origin of pacman's name, you become really boring to watch and thus, people lose interest.

Does this mean the character himself is bad? Maybe, but I haven't read the comics, so I can't fairly judge that. What I can say is the movie's iteration of the character is uninteresting for a good portion and I think that might have to do with Michael Cera, who seems the play the same awkward character in every movie he's in. Admittedly, he becomes better as the movie carries on, but as stated earlier, it's hard to get through the first fifteen or so minute of the film.

Visuals and Musical Effect: In the art direction, the movie is very stellar and psychedelic in appearance, with excellent effects and sharp, witty editing. It's well-done with simulated comic staples such as accent lines and fourth dimension item pulling, if that makes any sense. The characters themselves are portrayed as the hipster generation and are fairly interesting in appearance.

Musically, the film has a very indie band feel to it, and why not? The setting is portrayed in a new age hipster setting where starving artists work hard for their chance to make it big, so it makes sense that the major of the music is something a indie band might make. At the same time, it takes classic game tunes and uses their sound effects to express various emotions, with Zelda being a major contribution, including a very 'Zelda-esque' dream.

Overall: As a friend of mine would described it, Scott Pilgrim is “1/3rd video games, 1/3rd fight scenes, 1/3rd music, and 1/3rd romance”, and is a entertaining ride that just takes a little while to get going, but by the end of it, you'll be satisfied with what you saw as a fellow nerd. I recommend Scott Pilgrim if you're a fan of video games, comics, the series itself (though I heard there are a few creative liberties taken with the film), or if you like a love story that is significantly different from the norm.

Til next we meet...