Posted on: Friday, August 20th, 2010
Posted in: Movie Reviews
Comments: 156
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Review
Scott Pilgrim is an amazing film that any self respecting geek, nerd or video game lover should go out and see immediately. It has interesting well developed characters, an amazing visual flair, funny jokes, and 7 of the best action scenes I’ve seen outside of a kung fu flick! With the exception of the first few minutes and some missteps this is a near flawless adaption of an original story.
Angry Movie Review
What you’ll Like:
• Amazing Visual eye candy combined with a subtle deeper message.
• Nails translating a video game feel to the big screen, more so that actual video game based movies!
• The fight choreography is flawless – THIS is how fight scenes should be filmed.
• Self-aware of its own silliness and runs with it!
• Best Part: Every single fight scene.
What you’ll Hate:
• The first 30 minutes are almost unbearable.
• Dialogue oddly falls flat on occasion with lame jokes and visual gags.
• Scott is a rude inconsiderate jerk and Ramona is undeserving but that’s kinda the point – still a bit unsatisfying.
• Worst Part: All the extremely annoying jump cuts.
Final Verdict:
9/10
Excellent!
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156 thoughts on “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Review”
Isn’t Jet li and Jackie Chan team who are the stunt coordinator and choreographer. I saw jet li in one of the recording fight scene and jackie chan and his team is also mention in making the fight more awesome
So the first 30 minutes. I don’t think the film could have worked with out them. They where not exactly perfect, in fact they where mostly just ok/good which then pale in comparison to the rest of the film. But back to my point. They exist to ground you in Scotts world which is jump cuts and comic book montion graphics the whole thing is partly intended to be his world view rather than reality. The problem is that the whole thing is new and something people are not used to seeing so they have to spend some time training you in how to watch the film.
They give you the context and visual vocabulary you need to make sense of the crazyness when it comes in. In other words if they jumped right in to the action not only would they lose a needed story element, showing a slightly aimless unexcited life of some one who’s very self centred who acts like an ass. They also lose time to induct the views in to the world. Even those of us who are big fans of the comic needed some time to get accustomed to the visual language being used.
As for the ending, well, that’s tricky. The story in the film actually has a lot of depth and layers and every one takes something slightly different out of the big box of interesting stuff they present you with. But I think what speaks volumes is how badly the ending you liked went down in test screenings, yes they did exactly what you wanted them to do first. I know that I would have found that kind of ending more trite than the one that you might ‘expect’. The expected ending is the one that in the light of the story makes more sense and has a lot more depth. The other ending ties things up far to neatly it’s ends the journey that scott is only just starting to take.
You have to realise that scott has only just taken his first steps in to taking responsibility and in to growing up. He has not “discovered” him self in the way that Knives does in fact, if anything, his just getting to the point that knives gets to very early on in the story. To have him skip to the end with her would feel forced rushed and something the old scott would do. What scott realises is that what Knives offers is something he is not ready for and that he can’t even know if it’s something he wants. At the same time there is someone there that got to him in a way knives didn’t and acted as the catalyst for his changes who is in exactly the same boat as him. They both don’t really know who they are or what they want but they do know they want to find that out together. If they are soul mates or stay together for ever is not the point at all, it’s that they are now able to take the journey that will let them find out.
So ya, that’s my take on it at lest ha
Hey Joe!
What would you think of Kick-awe-ass-some-tic? =)
You would prefer Knives over Ramona?! R U loco?!
Beside of this it’s fuckin’ awesome review – I’m glad that I’ve found Your website
The jump cuts and transitions are techniques that Edgar Wright does very well, I don’t really have complaints with the first 30 mins. The only problem I had with the film was the jokes really fell flat and I didn’t truly LOL during the film like I did with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz
You should give the video game a nice, solid review. MAKE SURE TO PLAY WITH SOME BUDDIES THOUGH.
Wow not that i look at her Romona reminds me of Mira Han from SC 2
I couldnt wait to see this movie after watching your review and reading the books so i finaly gave in and dragged my dad along (who i thought would hate it) and we bothed loved it. Everyone in the theatre was laughing alot more than expected considering there were alot of 30-40 year olds who didnt look like they would get alot of the small refferences.
Thanks again joe for yet again making me want to go see something i woulda skipped pass.
I made plans to see this movie, but for whatever reason out of the four movie theaters within driving distance of me NONE of them had Scott Pilgrim. What the hell?
Alright alright. So allow me to put in my two cents here as i am one of those who paid for the movie. Of course, the reason the movie failed is due to the stupidity of the American movie going public. Of course I’m Canadian, so I’m not at fault.
Note my comment contains some small spoilers so reader beware.
I’ll disagree on the first 30 minutes. I thought they set the tone for the movie well. Being from Canada I laughed a lot at the “far away land of Toronto” joke, and had a geek-gasm when it zoomed to Scott’s house for the first time and it played the music you hear at the start of A Link To The Past. I freaked even more when they actually used the fairy fountain theme from Zelda during a scene. I wonder how much Nintendo got in royalties? (As a side note, Joe, you need to review more Nintendo games. Other M might be a good start.)
But outside of the references, it was solid. Okay Scott is a bit of an asshole. I can relate because I to, am a bit of an asshole. Hell all of us have our asshole moments. But at the moment he’s geeky, nerdy, insecure, shy, and totally awe-struck by this girl. I’ve felt the same at some moments of my life. I can imagine every other man has been at some point to.
And fact. Ramona is hotter then Knives. If you don’t agree, then you obviously missed the love (read: not sex, love) scene where she was in lingerie and showed that fine ass. Mmm mmm. That’s an ass you can spank. But I digress.
The rest of the movie though was as you say. Funny, action packed and overall full of awesomeness. I only wish that now, after becoming a bit more familiar with the original content, they had expanded a bit more on some of the exes’. I’d love to have seen more of a gap between Todd and Roxy, as I think he ended up fighting her way too soon.
Also, the twins were CRIMINALLY under-used. The concert thing was alright (seriously, a gorilla? wtf). But in the video game, and maybe the book I’m not sure, they summon a robot. Yes as in a huge fucking Power Rangers sized robot. That should have been in the movie.
But each ex had their own personality, each one of them stood out from the rest, and everything from the “Vs.” screen to the life bars to the enemies turning into coins was, well, gold.
Females be damned! EVERYONE should be punished who didn’t go see this movie and give it the credit it deserved. And poor Micheal Cera. He did awesome but now he’s lost his star power due to the movie going public being generally fucking stupid.
Anyway, that’s my take.
READ THE BOOKS JOE!!!!!!
God i wanna see this movie so bad!! ive read the first 5 graphic novels and im loving them. Im also really pissed to see that this movie is doing bad considering how great reviews have been.
I really thought this was gonna be lame until i heard its based off a comic and looked it up a bit.
I really wanna see this but have no one to go with, ill have to wait till itcomes out on dvd or give in to watching it online somewhere but probably wont considering the how bad its doing.
hmm kinda makes me think about eclips that terrible vampire movie.
whoever planning to see that one… wait until the series.. its way beter
it all looking so fake. as in the series.
I was feeling going out.. or was waiting for the cool part.. but it was gone.
For this film i dunno… as far angryjoe says cool fighting scenes is always good for me.
ultragaytastic = scott
i second that
I seen both Inception and Scott Pilgrim on the same day, and while I really enjoyed Scott Pilgrim imho it was no where near as good as Inception (Inception may be the best movie I’ve seen in the past 5 – 7 years). The thing about Scott Pilgrim was that unless you’re a big fan of romance and fighting for love (which I’m not) or a comic / video game / anime / manga geek (which I definitely am), then you most likely won’t enjoy this movie nearly as much as you or I did. I’d probably give this movie a 7 / 10 and Inception a 9 / 10, and I’m definitely awaiting a sequel to both of these movies X)
“unless you’re a big fan of romance and fighting for love ….then you most likely won’t enjoy this movie nearly as much as you or I did.” First of all that really didn’t make much sense there. But you certainly don’t have to be a “big fan” of fighting for love, is that even a genre? If you’ve ever liked someone and just wanted to be with them even if people tell you that you shouldn’t. You’ll get this movie. If you grew up in the 80′s. You’ll get this movie. If you’ve EVER played a video fight game. You’ll like this movie. It’s clever, well performed and a roller coaster ride.
And I disagree with Joe, the beginning isn’t bad at all. It establishes Scott and his friends and their lives then when Ramona appears things get complicated. CONFLICT! Seriously, help them make their money back, this film is a blast.
About your new word, the bottom line is already good enough : An epic and epic epicness. knowing Edgard Wright is himself a geek he loves video games, and scott pilgrim was a geek movie for geeks. i didn’t even need your review to see that movie… it hasn’t released yet in france u_u. Joe give us a Scott Pilgrim the game !
First Spoony and now you Joe. It was a great disapointment that you come to like this shit. This is a pile of teenager crap, just look at the poster of this movie, can you show that to your friends and say that you love this movie without feel shame for liking this ridiculous hipster teenager shit. Just look at this poster. How low have you gonne? God…
What are you talking about? This movie was awesome! Just look at your rating.
I respectfully disagree with you about the first 30 min of the movie. We would never know about Scotts 17 year old high school gf and why you find it sad they break up. If we never saw them spend time together and such , you would not care that he dumps her even though she was right for him. She would just come off as a crazy stalker girl.
Fanfuckinggasmic or eyegasmic
Great review Joe , I will see the movie inmdiately!
When it comes to Chile…..
Ii hasnt shown even a trailer over here….
(cries)
83 I loved Scott Pilgrim when I went to watch it
( Which I did so those punches went right over my head joe! XD )
and now that I think about it, it really really did start off slow, I didn’t seem to really care about that after though cause of all the crazy storm of awesomeness that flooded the screen and my brain.
But, I did like the slow first bit a little, from what I read from the comic or whatever, it’s visually page to page the same, which is pretty cool, but I can see how a lot of people don’t really care when it’s kinda.. dragging. I agree it could have been cut down, or at least contributed to the story more somehow, It’s nice to be accurate to the orginal medium, but sometimes adding a little something is not bad.
I guess I focused more on looking for mini-bits of nerdery and humor that whole first half hour, which I found a lot and was happy with them, ( I can’t lie, I thought the ‘Pee Bar’ was pure genious. X3; I’m easy to amuse. ) and I did find some of the dialogue a little ehh.. but I think it’s supposed to be that way, again, almost exact to the books and sometimes a little change is in order.
But besides that slow build up, it was absolutely incredible and every single fight scene I was just hoping it wouldn’t end, but happy with what I got. I loved the music too, I gotta say the bass fight and the twin scene is up there with my favorite moments in this movie.
The whole thing was a bit of a fluster of awesome that went in an awesome flow minus a bit of necessary.. story flow. I understood it, I got the message.. kinda. but like you said joe, it’s something that doesn’t really come from the movie, it’s something that kinda comes from thinking about it after, and to tell the truth i’m not all too sure myself.
Nonetheless it was a kickass movie, and i’m very sad that it did not do as well and is not doing as well as it should be. :/ We need to stop supporting crap in theaters’ (At least less. =P I mean we all need a bad movie sometime. Twilight in example. >_> ) and get back to awesome things like this >,<
If everyone who didn't watch this movie in theaters' lives had faces. I'd punch them!
I saw Scott Pilgrim when it was first released over here in the UK yesterday (When the wait between releases, I do not know) and it blew me away, I knew it was going to be good but had no idea it was going to be this good.
The opening did kind of worry me when I saw it. I took a friend to see the movie with me, and I was hyping it up the whole way there (She hadn’t read the comics and knew nothing about the story), and so when it started kinda slow, I was worried that maybe I was wrong and the whole thing was gonna suck.
Thankfully the fight scenes kicked in, saved the day, and we both left satisfied.
Also, what is up with the box-office results? 5th place opening week, 10th place this week? That’s terrible for a film this good… Kinda disappointed at the movie going public for ignoring something truly original and going for the same brain dead shlock that Hollywood usually pimps out.
Shame on you movie going public, Shame. On. You.
I looooooooooooove this movie. This saved the 2010 summer for me.
Now on the one hand, yes there are certain things in this movie that don’t quite work as well as they could, especially in regards to Scott’s journey as a character.
But on the other hand, the movie is fast paced, visually stunning, has a perfect cast all around, and is oozing with creativity throughout, all of which is more than we can say for many of the other films of this summer that faired better at the box office, and all we can do is complain that it’s not perfect? Wow, if only Edgar Wright had directed an awesome megablockbuster Batman movie before this, he could’ve gotten around that little hurdle.
But seriously, we keep talking about how we’re tired of all the crappy remakes and rock-stupid, cookie-cutter actioners and rom-coms. And this movie, a fun, inventive, masterful piece of entertainment, is getting kicked around by Vampires Suck and Last Airbender??
I haven’t had a chance to see the movie yet but as to what you said about the things you didn’t like (slow beginning) I think that as much as people can judge the movies based on the comics, you also have to judge it on its own merit as a movie. You can’t just copy something from one medium onto another wholesale – each medium (book, movie, comic, video game) has things it needs to work and things that just don’t work.
phenoma-credib-stounding-wonder-tacular-licious-staggering-marvel-gadzooks
you figure it out
This movie is losing to Vampires Suck.
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Haven’t seen the show…don’t really care to see it but how can you rate the 9 outta 10 when the first 30 minutes were unbearable? That’s like saying you got 70% on a test but I’ll give you 90% since the last few questions you answered were answered really good. Expendables was probably way better than this show.
eMoPhObIa thats for the first 30 minutes…Facepalm with pretty good fights. So a name I have yet to given meaning to that I made up….will mean both empphobia with a comeback of epic battle
Pissadishsness piss-a-dish-’s-ness ~thunder crackles~
lmao sorry I am baked shhh
With all the hype that I’ve heard over this movie it better be DAMN good! It’s going to take some convincing to get me to believe that the fight scenes are better than the Expendables. Also, I HATE that guy who plays Scott Pilgrim! He is such a BITCH! Btw, did they make a “Halo” reference in this movie?
Like many have pointed out this is a movie by director Edgar Wright, who never fails in making action scenes entertaining and exciting. He’s no brute either, but does it with humor and cleverness.
LOL nice review.. but i can not see the terrible 30min …. ill wait for the DVD!
It’s hard to fit 6 volumes of graphic novels into a film. The only way to tell the whole story, is to leave out a lot of the character development. In the comics, the audience can SEE Scott’s journey and character a lot better because they have 6 volumes to see it. In the film you have less than two hours. However, the movie was just as amazing as I had hoped. I was sad about a few story elements that we don’t see, but overall it was just EPIC.
FANTASMAGLORICAL!
I was very, very pleased with how this film turned out. Though your criticisms are right on the nail, I believe.
As Holly above mentioned, a -lot- of the character development of numerous characters (Scott and Ramona primarily, but also Knives, Kim and Envy to name a few) was cut out when compared to the graphic novels and the time-frame of certain events was changed drastically. This really did leave me with a feeling that the story in the movie was very much “rushed through” as they tried to fit all the fights in. Not a bad thing since the fights were really amazing to see on screen, especially the movie’s take on the fight against the twins. That alone made this movie for me, seriously. I also understand that they had to condense and edit out a lot to make it feasible as a movie. So yes, we lost a lot in translation from comic to film, but as you say, after it’s done kind of… “skimming” over the story of the first chunk of the comics – which leads to the jarring jumping about from scene to scene – it is a brilliant spectacle of a film. Loved the visual style, loved the sound style, it kept enough of the flavour of the comics in there (loved the use of comic panels for Ramona’s backstory segments).
But yeah… really am shocked that it’s not doing as well as I’d expected at the box office. It literally just came out today (technically yesterday) here and me and my housemate were the sad buggers at the first showing surrounded by all the summer break 12+ kiddies in the audience, leaving us feeling suddenly a billion times older than we are. >_<';;
Anyway, I ramble a lot and this is my first comment on a video blog site in… ever~ Soooo, hope I've not prattled too much. Just adored this film and the original graphic novels so wanted to throw down my "two pennies" since I only just saw the film here in the UK.
Iko out~
i’ll go check it out
by the way angryjoe
I need to tell you something about GEARS OF WAR 3
Do u remember carmine in the series
if so you should know that they’re bringing the 3rd brother name clay carmine
I hope you vote for save carmine
Please respond back to me
ASGASOME
AWESOME
+
ORGASM
I think the theme is too awkward for widespread appeal. It seems to be about obtrusive admiration of girls by nerds. Only people who look beyond the surface and see that this only an excuse for exaggerated fight scenes, will appreciate this movie.
is one of the evil exes a woman ? 0_0
anyway, nice review, spank those bad girls
You need a way to describe how awesome this film is? It’s Edgar Wright. He is awesome, and does awesome stuff. Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the 1999 British TV series “Spaced” (which I highly recommend, if only to see more of Simon Pegg).
Surely we deserve better than this cartoon mess? http://bit.ly/bU7tqN
It’s easy to point at niche appeal to say why the movie didn’t do well, but honestly, I think it was the advertising. Most people I know have either never heard of the movie or are vaguely aware of it. Evidently, the advertising has been very poor outside of advertising on gaming websites and so on.
This movie is SEX though, easily my favourite of the year, is officially in my top ten favourite movies! SEE IT SEE IT SEE IT!
I pretty much agree or understand the points you make. I liked the first 30 minutes, though I enjoyed it more on the level that they are in a city I’m so familiar with XD (lives in Canada). I like how those first few minutes are like a completely different, although quirky movie… and then suddently Matthew Patel bursts in and at that moment the action begins XD I thought it was really well done.
Imo superhero movies need less skinny dudes who dont fit to the role like Michael Cera or that weird guy in Kickass.
What happened to the classic superhero movies like ironman, batman etc,,,
Nothing happened to them! Didn’t you see Iron Man 2? They’re also working on Thor, Captain America, and the rest of the Avengers! AND, Chris Nolan is working on the next Batman film RIGHT NOW! This movie and Kick-Ass are just different, they aren’t replacing the standard!
In my opinion, I thought this was a fantastic movie. Though I did get a little jumbled up in the beginning, I didn’t dislike it to be honest. After that, I was wondering after the first couple of fights if they could keep up all the great fights without getting stale, only to see that it just kept getting better. This is one of my favorite movies now, and though I had never heard of the graphic novels before, it definitely got me interested in reading them. And seeing how it’s been doing poorly in the box office, I’m happy that I could support it as much as I could by getting the ticket to see it, because it definitely deserves to be higher up in box office. Hopefully it will do better in the weeks to come. Great review Joe, keep up the awesome reviews. And Go JOE! Yeah, that was pretty bad, wasn’t it? lol
I can’t believe I haven’t seen this movie yet! DON’T KILL ME JOE! How about: Superfantabulousultranerdgasmic! Scot Pilgrim vs the World 2: The Revenge of Joe!
hey, joe. can you tell us what do you think of Soulja Boy- “Anime”? lol. thanks.
I personally think that Scott wasn’t quite done grower yet (who is?) and that his relationship with Romona will cause him (and her) to grow more as people than if he would have went with Knives. To me it seems like Knives would keep Scott at the place he was at, at the end of the movie and not force or challenge him to grow as a person.
The reason why it’s a box office bomb is because it’s only applying to comic book nerds and video geeks like me =). Plus the tagline doesn’t make sense “An epic of epic epicness” WTF does that mean?
dam can ANY 1 just tell me what that midi intro and heavy metal ending them is PLZ
me want it NOW
the midi intro is “cross the rubicon”
the heavy metal part is i think by as i lay dying. i just don’t know the title of the song, but im pretty sure its them
Hey Joe, if you want to see some real good martial arts get a copy of IP MAN or IP MAN 2 and these movies even have good actors.
On SPvTW: I hate super power/hero movies – except Watchmen – and i can’t stand Michael Cera since he always plays the same role(read: NERD WHO GET’S A SHOT AT A “HOT” GIRL). So i won’t rate the movie – I’m just not the demographic this is marketed to.
yeah i nearly walked out in the first 30 minutes and im a graphic novel nerd! but thank god i didnt because the rest of it was awesome!
>angry Joe
>complaining about jump cuts
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
also it was meant to be aimless at the start, it is symbolic of Scott’s aimless life
just watch Spoony’s review, he goes into it much better.
Nice Misogamy and spousal abuse at the end, btw
>implying green text works on this site
Great review as usual!
lol at joe givin spakins
I have to say this was the best movie I’ve seen all year and I don’t really enjoy movies all too much. There was not a single part I didn’t enjoy in the movie though, to be fair, some of the jokes were really bad. Just today saw the movie for a 2nd time and I thought it was even better, perhaps because everything made more sense this time around. If you have extra money laying around after seeing it once, if you didn’t quite understand it the first time, I’d suggest seeing it again because it might be that much better.