As I'm sure that Joe would be able to tell you, this review has been a long time coming. He wrote his review back in August and I'm here to provide a second opinion (...6 months later).
Around here, it's pretty easy to tell that Joe is an artist. The obvious signs would be the comics and the attention to detail on the blog itself. The less obvious signs are subtly located in the context of his posts. Joe focused his review on the artistic elements of the film: the visual effects, the music, the timing, etc. His review is not only from the perspective of movie-goer but also that of movie-maker. All that is to say, he likes to be cognizant of artistic choices as they manifest themselves in the film. I suppose that I do too, but I'm not trained to look for them, I'm barely familiar with them, and I lack the ability to compare these artistic choices to those of other movies in the genre. In other words, I'm going to have to do something else in order to be insightful.
That preface aside, I'm going to be clear in saying Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is excellent. If you haven't seen it (and you're under 35 years old), do yourself a favor and watch this movie. Now. If you have seen it, go watch it again. I'm going to skip covering the basic plot of the story because (a) you probably know it and (b) if you're reading this, you've probably read Joe's review where he has that covered.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World excels in the art of the narrative. The way in which the story is told is incredible. Not surprisingly for a movie focused on a video game culture, fantasy and reality have blended together. For some people, I'm sure that this takes away from the film, but I'll get to that later. For now though, the jumbled mix of adolescent drama and video game references creates the perfect lens through which to view the life of the protagonist, Scott Pilgrim.
The vitality of any narrative lies in its ability to make the viewer (or reader) relate to the story. For highly regarded films, this (almost) always manifests itself in details that promote the reality of any given situation. Whether it's Saving Private Ryan or The Wizard of Oz, the details provide a certain level of internal realism (usually because the storyline needs some explanation). What sets Scott Pilgrim vs. The World apart is its ability to invoke feelings at the expense of reality. In other words, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is told through the lens of how Scott perceives his world, despite the third-person nature of the storyline. At any given point, it's hard to tell whether you're inside or outside of Scott's head.
The virtue of this narrative method is that you visibly see Scott playing the video game of life. You are watching the main character fight to free his princess from her captors. Yes, you've already seen this story more times than you can count. However, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is refreshingly different in that the exaggerations, the cutscenes, the animations, and the timing all work to invoke the feelings associated with youth. The virtue of this film goes beyond its ability to bring a game to life (...or life to a game); instead, it brings video game action and vitality. It is a self-centered adventure with a short attention span that we have all lived at one time or another.
For those of you thinking I'm wrong, that this could just as easily be a director wanting to use video game culture as a medium to tell a love story (as opposed to a means of depicting Scott's perception of his own world), your point is well taken. However, that eliminates the actual relationship between Scott Pilgrim and the video game culture utilized in the film. The only indicator that Scott Pilgrim actually plays video games is his ability to play a DDR-type game early in the movie. Instead, the game genres primarily invoked are fighting (battle scenes) and RPG (Zelda music, leveling up). Other than that, there are a slew of game references which clearly cross gaming genres, from the concept of the "boss battle" to the idea that beating your opponent means getting coins. If the critique at the beginning of the paragraph was valid, there would be no relationship between Scott and the narrative method, which doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the film.
There is a certain fantasy to life. All people have a world-view formed by both the narratives they know and the narrative that they live. This film is a rare opportunity to see multiple narratives as they inspire the growth of a character. The video game culture makes this possible by invoking gaming experiences that you must share with Scott; this movie has the opportunity to develop its characters implicitly, assuming the viewer already has knowledge of the narratives (video games) that Scott is familiar with. A lot of the references are subtle, but they're there. This film has as much depth in it as you want it to have. On the surface, it's lighthearted. If you dig a little bit, you'll find that the references are rich and the concepts run deep. This movie provides for video game players the same thing that Ten Things I Hate About You provides for people that are knowledgeable about Shakespeare (or that have read The Taming of the Shrew).
I do have to admit, however, that if someone knows nothing about video games and can't appreciate the references, it doesn't surprise me why they would think the film isn't very good. While it is well-produced, the movie hinges on the viewer's ability to relate to the characters in the film. If you don't like video games, this movie is not for you. That's why I think Joe's assessment of the age group (15-34 years old) is fairly accurate. In that group, you have the young players just old enough to understand adolescent drama and you have the older players, who grew up with a Super Nintendo. This film definitely has a market and its attention to detail should make the video game community proud.
Honestly, this is one of the better films that I've seen recently. It's an instant classic for anyone that appreciates video games. Although it's not without its imperfections, its vices are usually its virtues. One example of this is the inconsistent speed of the progression of the storyline, which is both an arguable flaw and an intelligent design quirk that mimics the actual progression of a video game. This film strikes me as being "love it" or "hate it". The fact that I've seen it twice (and counting) should probably tell you which side of that debate I'm on.
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