Scott Pilgram vs. the World

Reviewed by Steve Kochems

From the moment the Atari-esk Universal logo came up, the aforementioned film did one thing that I haven’t seen another film do nearly as well, and that is a nearly perfect translation from a technologically driven source text to final film. Now, it might be perfect but I don’t know because I’ve never read the graphic novel, but going simply on hearsay and what I saw in the film, it seems like an uber-geeks acid trip gone terribly correct.

At the head of the film is Scott Pilgram (who knew?), status – awesome, who is well played by Michael Cera (Superbad, Juno). A lot of people give Cera flack (Mike), but he’s really developing into a good actor who can keep a solid balance of genuine sensitivity with awkward comedic undertones. Anyways, Scott meets this girl in a dream and then finds her and needs to defeat her seven evil ex’s in order to win her love. Yup, I’m more of an Olive Garden kind of guy.

From a screenwriting standpoint, the general style of the film has a blended feel, as if they mashed both a graphic novel and an old Zelda for Super Nintendo into a movie. And it works. They hit all the points they should (though the ending drags a bit) and the wide array of characters will generally keep you interested to see which evil ex-boyfriend comes up next.

Perhaps the most interesting part is in the first twenty minutes, where Scott seems to cut in and out of reality (as the film cuts from scene to scene quickly almost without Scott knowing). That might be what makes him such a likable character from the get go, if the narrative seems to be jumping around without him (or the audience) knowing to where and, to some extent, why.

But of course, there are drawbacks. For me, the subject matter was only good enough to watch it once. I won’t buy it on DVD or see it again. I might watch it on TV. So it’s gotta lose points for that. If nothing else though, the movie can hold its own next to other graphic novel adaptation like V for Vendetta and 300, which isn’t so easy to do (see Watchmen). It also stands as a piece of quality filmmaking in a year that also boasted The Bounty Hunter and Clash of the Titans. So I will put my personal bias aside on that one and give the film its due.


4 out of 5 stars