I had a chance to head to the theater this weekend to get out of the oppressing Texas sun to watch Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the graphic novel adaptation of the Brian Lee O’Malley series. How did the movie stand up to the comics? Clickedy-click on that link below!

 Luckily I had the opportunity to read all six of the graphic novels before the release of the movie. I was pulling into the theater as I finished the final page of volume six. No, I’m kidding. I had a few days to let the graphic novel sink in before I saw the movie.

For those that don’t know, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the tale of a twenty-something year old kid at heart, living inside a weird and twisted world filled with garage bands and old-school video game references. He’s a loser, dating a seventeen year old girl named Knives Chau. I should also mention that Scott is 23 years old. Yeah, he’s a loser. One night he has a dream of this mysterious girl rollerblading her way through his head, and a few days later he happens upon her at a party. This is Ramona Flowers. The two eventually strike up a relationship and unbeknown to Scott has to fight her seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to continue to date her.

The fights take on a Street Fighter feel, with the iconic “VS” showing up between characters in the movie and graphic novel. The series of books is just littered with little hints of gaming culture and the movie is exactly the same. I will say that through the first two books in the series the references seem almost forced, but gradually become a definitive part of the charming world Scott and his friends live in. Things like magical doors appear with stars on them from Mario, subspace highways to fast travel (also a callback to Mario tubes), XP, upgrades and money all magically appear when Scott beats an ex. Also throw in an incredible 8-bit Universal opening, music, and various sound effects from Sonic rings, Final Fantasy bass lines, and Zelda and you’ve got a video gamers wet dream.

The movie itself is shot in a mishmash of manga comic book style and video games come to life. The fight scenes are grand, epic, and absolutely gorgeous, oftentimes turning into split-screen to show a character running madly towards the other with streams of light following behind their heads. It’s these moments that make Scott Pilgrim a fun ride.

This movie is just flat-out fun to watch. You are constantly getting visual stimuli from something, but surprisingly enough it also does a nice job staying true to the source material. Of course there were a few key points that were left out of the movie because of time constraints, but the movie shows basically the same end result as the book just in a different way. I was really sad to see that one of my favorite moments from the graphic novels was left out of the movie: the explanation of just how Ramona delivers her packages using the subspace highway. These are small nags from me, but I ultimately understand that they can’t fit everything from the books in.

For these few minor details that are left out, the movie makes up for it by including thousands of even awesome-r things (yes, I did just make up a word for this review), including the ending. The ending isn’t really part of the comic series, but it alone (or I should say the final act) is worth the price of admission. The movie theater was laughing and clapping throughout the movie, but we all erupted into laughter and applause as soon as this key act went down. It’s something that hardcore video gamers got, and something even the casual game fan can understand. It fits so well into the world in which Scott and his friends live, that its an incredible addition to the movie that any gamer shouldn’t miss.

I just want to say that you fail me as a gamer and nerd if you do not go see this movie in the theater. It’s fun, video game related, over-the-top, theirs fighting, and it’s one of the best summer movies I’ve seen in a long time. There is no reason why gamers shouldn’t band together to make this tops at the box office.