It has been 13 years since “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” dropped and Ramona Flowers forever redefined the manic pixie dream girl. The recent animated Netflix television series “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” sees the full cast reprising their roles, including director Edgar Wright returning as an executive producer. The question, then, is simple: Does the original still hold up? Is “Scott Pilgrim” still good?
I’ll give you the TL;DR version: Yes. Yes it is.
I am in lesbians with this movie. It just gets better the more you watch it. As a huge fan of Wright’s other work — “Hot Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead” are both among my favorite movies of all time — this movie fits as both a recognizable addition to his filmography and a welcome departure from his usual humor. Wright’s signature directing style is punchy and fast-paced, and the composition and choreography of every shot feels deliberate and perfectly calculated.
The cast is phenomenal, with particular standouts in a pre-superhero Chris Evans, a pre-superhero Brie Larson, a post-superhero Brandon Routh and the evergreen Kieran Culkin. Michael Cera is especially brilliant as Scott, perfectly playing pathetic and awkward without ever feeling unbearable.
The soundtrack is stacked with banger after banger, especially the diegetic original songs. Sex Bob-Omb’s post-punk garage band sound is elevated even further with its crunchy, overblown production, and Brie Larson’s pop-rock cover of “Black Sheep” stands as a great song on its own merit.
But it’s the details of the movie that are so addictive. Every time I watch the movie, I find a new trick in the editing which makes each shot feel seamless. When I rewatched it for the umpteenth time to write this review, I still found myself laughing out loud at line deliveries that I’d never caught or smooth-like-butter visual gags. There’s a great Seinfeld bit about halfway through the film which gets me every time.
I can’t defend everything about the movie. Parts of it simply haven’t aged well. The song during the fight against Matthew Patel is particularly uncomfortable, as is the fan service-y tone of the Roxy fight. But for every moment that’s less-than-good, there’s something great to take in turn, like the bass duet during the Todd fight, or the vegan police bit during the Todd fight, or — okay, the entire Todd fight.
It’s a shame that, for a while after this movie’s release, Scott Pilgrim became a symbol for emotionally stunted gamer incels, in the same way that Ramona Flowers became synonymous with the quirky, detached cool girl — the definitive manic pixie dream girl of the 2010s. It isn't the movie’s fault this happened, but it’s a shame that a story about two deeply immature people who both have to learn to be better was so glossed over by public perception. A lack in media literacy — or maybe just the way that pop culture was at the time — caused Scott to become an underdog, an out-of-nowhere hero. In reality, he’s the villain of his own story. That’s a point the movie tries to make abundantly clear, even in its climax, but “Scott Pilgrim is just like me” remained a staple red-flag phrase of the early 2010s regardless.
In a way, “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” feels like a solution to that problem, using the same cast to debunk its own mythology. “Vs. the World” has become a pop culture monolith, for better or for worse. “Takes Off” isn’t a movie-to-anime adaptation. It isn’t really even a comics-to-anime adaptation. It’s a second try at now-iconic characters in a way which interacts with its own premise in meaningful ways. “Takes Off” could have never existed without “vs. the World,” and both the show and the movie are better for it.
“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” is now, retroactively, the black sheep of the “Scott Pilgrim” media family, and I can’t claim it’s the best iteration of the story. Still, it remains one of my favorite films, and a fantastically good time. If you’ve never seen it, I highly (highly, highly) recommend checking it out before watching “Takes Off” — if only to finally understand why people keep saying “Bread makes you fat?” every time you go to Olive Garden.
