Scott Pilgrim Versus the World hits the theaters today, but I'm happy to say that I've already seen it twice. Yes, I'm that super-dork who talked her way into two screenings (thanks Roommate!) one of which was at Pixar (yessss, nerdgasm) and who, despite having seen this movie twice in the last two weeks, still wants to go see it in theaters to support it in the box office. And I hope you do, too.
Based on the series of 6 graphic novels by Brian Lee O'Malley (yay for creative hapas!), Scott Pilgrim the movie (named for the second book of the series) is fabulously adapted by super slick director Edgar Wright, who also directed a few of my other favorite movies, Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (starring the awesome and hilarious Simon Pegg). While I had a little bit of a hard time getting into the graphic novel series because of the aesthetic (giant manga eyes, particularly, and characters who look very much the same other than their hair-dos) I did like it even though I stopped at the 4th book. But the movie was better for its brevity-- crazy kinetic and stuffed full of great one-liners, sight gags and hilarious/awesome fight sequences and the coolest arcade game visual style ever made the movie go so fast that I worried I might have missed things since I was laughing so hard. I was particularly keen on Thomas Jane's cameo as the vegan police. Leading boy/man Micheal Cera does an awesome job bringing humor and vulnerability to Scott's character, and Kieran Culkin kills it as Scott's gay roommate, Wallace. I'd list everyone who was awesome, but there's no weak link in the chain-- the acting is great, the humor is campy and the arc is deceptively sentimental.
Read the books to get into the world. Watch the movie to revel in it.
