The Blu Ray Review: Scott Pilgrim

Ok, watched this again this evening.  I need to give you a little history on this film.  First of all I am not a fan of the books this film was based off of nor the manga style of comic in general.  If you ask my 2 teenage daughters, they go GA GA over it.  I knew of the books and of the production of this film and jumped on the bandwagon as soon as I saw the first trailer.  I was psyched, my wife was psyched, the girls were psyched.  We were going to see this film in the theater.  Bad scheduling conflict Scott Pilgrim.  It was released the same day as "The Expendables".  It was my birthday and we watched Stallone kick south american drug lord ass.

>>>>Fast forward to this past week.  My first viewing was of the DVD and granted, I was tired when watching it.  I fell asleep on the couch and woke up with a crooked neck missing roughly 80% of the film.  From what I saw, unfortunately, I was not all that happy and came to the consensus that not watching it in the theater was a good idea after all.  I tell ya, watching movies on DVD is crap anymore.  Not to sound like a rich baby, which I am not, but happen to be fortunate enough to own a high def tv and high def video equipment.  Scott Pilgrim is one of those movies, to thoroughly enjoy it, you have to either watch it in it's original glory in the theater or in high definition at home.

If you do not like video games then stop reading.  If your not a big fan of Michael Cera then stop reading.  If your not in either of the 2 categories above then I sense you will enjoy this film.  If you are like me and grew up on old Nes and Snes game systems then this will bring a lot of memories back for you.  I went into this film thinking that if you liked Edgar Wright as a director (he made Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz most notably to US audiences) then you will love this film.  Not so much as I think he takes a different direction in Scott Pilgrim.  To be blunt honest.  Michael Cera is the same guy in all of this movies.  Does it seem to work for him?  Most of the time, yes.  He does a good job as Scott Pilgrim and I do enjoy his acting although redundant 99% of the time.

The story is not all that complicated.  Our main character Scott Pilgrim falls in love with a girl named Ramona Flowers.  To win her love and have her all to himself he must fight her 7 evil exes.  The evil exes are what really make the film for me.  They are played by such famous actors as Chris Evans (Captain America and Johnny Flame from Fantastic 4), Brandon Routh (Superman) and Jason Schwartzman.  Kieran Culkin is Scott's best gay friend and Anna Kendrick is his sister.

The special effects are out of this world.  The battle of the bands scene with Scott's band against the 2 Asian techno twins is pretty amazing.  Along the film you will find many flashbacks to your old 8-bit Nintendo games from in film graphics to the subtle soundtrack and sound effects.  I also found that a lot of the transitions and the constant aspect ratio changing from full screen to letterbox and back and forth kept the pace of the film running smoothly.

Overall, this is a good rental and worth a viewing once.  I see a lot of teenagers that are into Anime and Japan Manga culture liking this film more than your average demographic.  Perhaps if the film had of been released at a different time of the year it would not have been such a flop in the box office.  Hopefully it can make it's money back in DVD and Blu Ray sales.  I am looking forward to the next film from Edgar Wright hopefully with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun and Hot Fuzz).  2 ouf 4 pizzas!