Scott Pilgrim vs. the Box Office

This is about the seventh time I've sat down to write something about the Scott Pilgrim Versus the World movie. I am having a hard time articulating how I feel about it. I saw it a few weeks ago with three other people; My brother in law who read the books like me, my wife who only read the first half of the books, and a friend who didn't even know the books existed. My wife and friend loved the movie while me and my brother were disappointed. I've decided that most of the blame falls on book 6:

Books: ruining a movie near you as we speak!

Now, I'm not that stupid, I know that movie adaptations of books change a lot of things. It's a necessity, you can't fit all that information into two hours of film. There's a reason why it's called an adaptation and not a recreation or whatever. Knowing this, I absolutely loved the first hour of the movie. I thought that a lot of the things that were actually a good thing. The energy of the first two fights was fantastic.
/*I just realized that I am doing a horrible job of reviewing this movie for someone who has no idea what it's about. Well, that's not really my goal here. You want to read good reviews written by good reviewers? Go here or here. I'm more of a stream of consciousness kind of guy, I really don't know what's coming next...*/
Boobs! Wait, no... the energy of the first two fights = awesome! Patel's Bollywood number? Lucas Lee's stunt team? None of that was in the book but it was a lot of fun. I think I was laughing the whole time Chris Evans was on screen. I didn't care about divergences from the books, it was too much fun. The movie had a lot more emphasis on the band, and as an extension, music. That makes sense because it's not something that really translates that well in a book. The music really adds to the atmosphere of the story, and I want to get my hands on the soundtrack. The Clash of the Demonhead show was probably the pinnacle of my enjoyment of the movie. After that, however, I started getting uneasy. The entire Envy storyline was cut and the scenes with her suffered for it. I understand they couldn't fit everything in, but it still bugged me. Then Roxy showed up and she was defeated the way Envy is defeated in the book, even though the way Roxy was defeated in the book was friggen awesome. I can forgive all that! What I can't forgive is the blatant lack of robots!

Seriously, who doesn't love robots?

It was the fight with the Japanese twins that really threw me for a loop. I understand they wanted to incorporate the band more, and the scene is actually pretty cool. Or I think it was, I couldn't really tell because I was too busy whining about robots. In the book Scott faces off against a couple of robots before fighting the twins in a very Kim Pine related subplot. I never expected that subplot to be addresses so I wasn't expecting the fight to be exactly the same, but come on! Robots!
Then there was the end. Crazy different. Seeing how the movie was made before book 6 was released, I shouldn't have got my hopes up. It just bugs me when things are changed that didn't really need to be. A fucking microchip? Come on!

You expect the guy in a $4000 suit to believe microchip? Come on!

Enough about the book. Most of you will never read it (even though you should). As an adaptation of a book I love I give this movie a B, but on its own I give it an A. If I wasn't bogged down by disappointment I would have really loved this movie. Just ask my wife!

You should probably ask her soon

This movie is one of the most original and fun movies I have seen in a while. The casting was top notch. Even Michael Cera seemed to break out of his shell, he didn't stutter or glance at his shoes once! Ellen Wong's Knives was too cute for words. Kieran Culkin nailed Wallace. Alison Pill was perfect as Kim Pine, even if her role was severely reduced. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Anna Kendrick give me two boners at once! Jason Schwartzman was at his smarmy best, but the guy who stole the show was Chris Evans. I said it before and I'll say it again, I was laughing at during the whole Lucas Lee scene.
It felt like watching a video game. The action scenes were fantastic. This is what video game movies should be. You should watch this. I understand if you want to wait for it to come out on DVD, but get it right when it comes out. It's worth it.