Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was a very cute, nerdy, and all-around decent movie. What I liked most was that the movie was believable.  Even though there were many nuances that are just not possible in real life (bad guys poofing into loose change when you defeat them, roller blades that melt snow as you skate through it) the story was very real.

Scott is an average, nerdy, 22 year old guy.  He's been single for the last year due to a bad break-up with his girlfriend, who we later learn is a super-star sell-out punk-pop-rocker.  When she hit it big, she dumped Scott.

Scott eventually meets Ramona, a girl about his age who just moved in to the area.  She has short, hot pink hair and a very awesome sense of style.  After they hang out a few times, some weird dude shows up and claim that Scott must defeat him to be with Ramona.  In classic video-game fashion, Scott manages to defeat the first guy that shows up.

Ramona eventually lets him on a secret; she has seven evil exes that he must defeat to be her boyfriend.  She eventually explains that the reason she moved to Canada was because she was fed up with her history in New York and wanted to escape it all.  And the last guy she was with did not want to move with her when she wanted to leave NY.  So she dumped him.

She's a bit of a heart breaker it seems, yet with a really awesome dry sense of humor.  Her facial expressions throughout the whole movie speak far louder than her words because they're so subtle.  She's soft spoken, has a lower voice (much lower than Knives' voice, who was Scott's sort of weird-17-year-old girlfriend at the time he met Ramona) and actually lacks normal facial expressions for most of the movie except for when something truly out of the ordinary is occurring.  And that is when her expressions really pop.  All she has to do is lift an eyebrow, fake a small smirk, or give a little gaping-mouth, slightly bug-eyed look and it shouts out her emotions much louder than any words would.

Scott's reaction to the seven exes thing is okay until he ends up blind sided by the fourth or fifth person, who happens to be a chick.  Ramona claims it was a phase to which Scott says "I didn't know you had a sexy phase!"

I lawl'ed.

The movie follows a very "seven level dungeon"-esque theme.  Scott's band is competing in a battle of the bands, multi-gig deal for a contract with G-Man's record company.  Through these shows, Scott meets a few of Ramona's exes and defeats them a la expert martial arts with extreme video game cinematography.

It works though; it's not campy or trite or stupid in the least bit.  It's actually quite entertaining.  Eventually, we learn that G-Man is Giddeon, Ramona's most recent and most powerful evil ex.  (Throughout this movie, Ramona changes her hair color every week and a half, and has gone from hot pink, to dark blue, to emerald green by the end).  Giddeon steals Ramona back after a show where Scott's band defeats a set of twins that Ramona dated.  At the same time.  Through this defeat, Scott gets a 1-Up.

After the show, Giddeon speaks with Scott and his band, saying screw the last show, I'm giving you guys the contract now.  Scott refuses, but the rest of his band mates sign immediately, including the replacement bassist, Neil.

Ramona says she's sorry and explains "I just can't help myself when I'm around him ..." while touching the back of her head at the nape of her neck.  I thought that seemed weird at the time, but didn't think about it again until later.

Giddeon builds a new theater and has an opening show featuring Sex Bob-Omb, the band that Scott left.  Scott goes to this show and tries to fight Giddeon, earning the power of love as he declares his love for Ramona.  He also levels up and gets a kick-ass sword that pops out of his chest and is made of pink fire.

Unfortunately, Giddeon defeats Scott.  While in death, Ramona visits him in a vision, where she apologizes again, stating she can't help herself when she's around Giddeon.  Scott nods in understanding but Ramona says, "No, I really can't help myself," turns around and lifts the hair up at the nape of her neck revealing a microchip with Giddeon's little mock Triforce symbol on it.  Scott doesn't feel so bad now.  Except that he's dead.

Oh wait!  1-Up!

Scott comes back to life at the point where he received his 1-Up from defeating the twins.  The movie does a fast-forward up to the point where he confronts Giddeon and says "I'm not fighting you for Ramona, I'm fighting you for myself!"  He then levels up and earns the power of self-respect!  Yay!  He also gets a cool bad ass sword that pops out of his chest and is made of purple fire.

This time he does defeat Giddeon.  But then he has to face a more sinister force: himself.  A dark and evil, jealous, angry, and sad version of himself.  Ramona and Knives (who showed up to kill Ramona but eventually helps Scott) leave to let Scott deal with his emotions.  Outside of the venue, Ramona and Knives are talking and they see Scott leaving the venue with his emotion-self walking with him.  They're talking, shooting the shit, and make plans to get brunch together next week.

He makes amends with his emotions.

Aw.

Ramona apologizes again for all the nonsense she caused him and says she's leaving Canada for some place else.  She then walks away.  Scott doesn't know what to do, he wants to be with her but doesn't know if she wants him.  Knives convinces him to go after her, to which he listens and catches up with Ramona, asking if they can start over and go some place together.  She says, "Yeah, that's cool" and they leave.

The end.

Yay!  It was such a cute movie, was glad I caught it on deh HBO.