Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a hipster who plays in a band, Sex Bob-omb, with Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) and Kim Pine (Alison Pill).  One day he meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and he falls head over heels, for one reason or another.  However, this romance comes with a catch; if Scott wants to date Ramona he must defeat her seven evil exes.  So let the romance, I mean battle, begin.

What makes this movie work is not only the video-game nerdfest that it is but the brilliance of British genre filmmaker Edgar Wright.  Now let me not confuse you with the term genre film right now.  I do not mean that Wright makes bad horror movies that have less than a dollar in budget.  What I mean is that for the entire of Wright’s filmography, Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, he’s found the need to not only completely mock a genre of filmmaking that’s existed for just about a century now but allow us to enjoy the film as if it respects the genre that it is mocking at the same time.  This film makes a mockery of most romantic comedies while at the same time being a completely new kind of romantic comedy film.

This film is the movie that Michael Cera has been waiting for.  While he remains a pretty awkward character throughout the movie, unlike every other movie that he’s starred in for the last decade in this case he’s actually a confident (most of the time) awkward character that accepts his awkwardness.  Also, he kicks some serious ass.  Part of me wants to believe that Cera did most (if not all) of his own stunt work, but I know that probably isn’t true.  When it comes to the fights themselves I have to say that Lucas Lee (Chris Evans) wins for best battle.  I even found myself loving the changes that were made to most of the battles, especially the one against Lucas Lee the most.

The seven evil exes are as follows: Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha), Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh), Roxy Richter (Mae Whitman), Kyle Katayanagi (Keita Saitou), Ken Katayanagi (Shota Saito) and Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman).  Where the book failed the movie succeeded.  The film puts more of the action on showcase for us to enjoy than a lot of the build-up that we get in the books.

The film is faithful to the books up until we meet Roxy, the half-ninja girl.  It’s not to the fault of anyone other than Wright started writing the screenplay for the film before Volume 4, Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together, was published.  It is however obvious that Wright was getting notes from Bryan Lee O’Malley (the creator/writer/artist of the books) since a lot of ideas from volumes four to six all made it into the film magically.  I did enjoy how Wright tried his best to take O’Malley’s ideas and piece together his own variation of the last three volumes, but the books are better in that regard.

What makes this movie special is not only its hipster video game genre, but the way that it tackles the romantic comedy genre.  With any relationship comes the baggage of the guys and girls that came before.  Instead of the usual reluctant romantic interest that plays it guarded and our lead has to spend the next two hours on screen trying to talk his/her way into a relationship with the other individual, here we get a video game representation of that.  Scott quite literally has to defeat each of Ramona’s previous boyfriends in a complete video game setting.  We’re even treated to a massive “VS” on the screen every time one of the battles begin just to let us know that this is all a game and we’ll be seeing ridiculous things like finishing moves and special battles, like the bass battle, which makes it even more awesome.

Overall it’s a great romantic comedy that has all the action that any gamer geek would need to get him through the door.  Yes you’ll probably be complaining how much more in tune the books are with all the themes but in the end it’s still an awesomely fun movie to watch.

IMDB says 8.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 81%

I say 8.5/10