“Scott Pilgrim” reviews

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World opened nationwide at midnight last night. Here are some reviews:

Los Angeles Times (Betsy Sharkey): In “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” the inventive, free-floating ode to nerdville, the comic-book geek stays in the picture. Whether it’s Scott’s everyday loser life or his ninja-fighting, super-powered imaginary one, it’s all played with a sort of Michael Cera-styled sweet, nebbishy sensibility that works well since the real Michael Cera actually got the role. Go figure.

Actually, there was a lot of figuring to be done to convert Bryan Lee O’Malley’s distinctive artistic, and loosely autobiographical, musings about a 22-year-old Toronto native whose life is framed by his total lack of ambition until he’s in a fight to the death to woo the girl of his dreams. Whew. Which is why Edgar Wright of “Shaun of the Dead,” with all its slacker-zombie nonsense, seemed like such a good choice to direct. He was.

New York Times (A.O. Scott): There are some movies about youth that just make you feel old, even if you aren’t. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” based on a series of sprightly graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, has the opposite effect. Its speedy, funny, happy-sad spirit is so infectious that the movie makes you feel at home in its world even if the landscape is, at first glance, unfamiliar.

I don’t mean the streets of Toronto, where the movie is set, and which we have all seen on-screen before, usually pretending to be the streets of other cities. (“Wait, they make movies in Toronto?” says Scott Pilgrim, deadpanning one of a million quick little jokes threaded through the action.) The drab, mumbly realism with which the director Edgar Wright depicts that city is offset — subverted, enlivened, thrown into crazy do-it-yourself pop-art relief — by images and situations drawn from arcade video games. 

Cinematical: I’m neither hip nor cool. If you rounded my age up you’d hit 40 and if you asked me if I’d read the Scott Pilgrim novels I’d have said “Scott what now?” I have no interest in what’s hot or cool or popular at Hot Topic these days, I’m absolutely clueless about current pop music, and I couldn’t care less what’s “trending” on twitter at the moment. In other words, I’m old. The maniacal new romantic comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is not exactly “geared” to my “demographic,” and aside from the fact that I like the director and several cast members, I had no real rooting interest in the project one way or another.

Then I watched the film, and what I saw was one of the purest, sweetest, funniest, and most dead-on accurate portrayals of “young male in love” syndrome that I’ve ever seen in a cinema. One need not be a hip youngster or a seasoned film critic to see what’s going on beneath the surface of this powerfully entertaining movie — but it certainly helps to approach this strange little experiment with an open mind and a youthful heart. Anyone who dismisses this film as youth-pandering video game ephemera simply isn’t looking closely enough.

TotalFilm: Proving himself a modern culture-mulcher to match Tarantino, Wright delivers a mash-up of manga, videogames and comic-book style that you’ve never quite seen before on the big screen.

The Hollywood Reporter (Kirk Honeycutt): Chore №1 is accomplished: The fanboys and girls gave a resounding shriek of approval to Universal’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” at Comic-Con following its “surprise” screening here at the comic book-driven event that has become a kind of Halloween for adults. But the question remains: Will anybody else care?

Entertainment Weekly: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the first rock & roll kung fu videogame youth love story. Directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), it’s based on a comic-book series by Bryan Lee O’Malley. At times, it may remind you of other films adapted from graphic novels (notably Ghost World), and even of Wes Anderson, but it’s got a madly clever and playful let’s-try-it-on prankishness all its own.

Scott Pilgrim was one of my Must See movies for the summer. How about you?

UPDATE: Uh-oh.

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