Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Blu-ray

STUDIO: Universal | DIRECTOR: Edgar Wright | CAST: Michael Cera, Alison Pill, Mark Webber
RELEASE DATE: 11/9/2010 | PRICE: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray/DVD combo $39.98
BONUSES: deleted scenes, featurettes, bloopers, Adult Swim animations, video production blogs
SPECS: PG-13 | 113 min. | fantasy romance | 1.85:1 aspect ratio | DTS-HD audio | English, French and Spanish subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World isn’t your usual dorky romance movie. It does have Michael Cera and his signature awkward style; it does have twentysomethings talking about relationships; but it also has great visuals and kick-ass fight scenes.

On Blu-ray, the movie looks fantastic, with its colorful videogame-style graphics popping off the live action. And the punches, kicks, splats and thonks sound great in high definition.

The videogame style is continued in the Blu-ray menu, which looks like Universal’s usual menu except with a low-res background and a font reminiscent of old arcade games. It even boasts a countdown, as used in the movie.

The Blu-ray — a Blu-ray/DVD combo with a downloadable digital copy of the film — has plenty of special features that go into every aspect as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

The almost 40-minute making-of featurette is the highlight, showing all the actors; director Edgar Wright; Bryan Lee O’Malley, who wrote the graphic novels on which the film is based; and plenty of behind-the-scenes workers. They go into detail about the movie’s design, the adaptation of the books, the casting process (Cera was originally considered to be too young, but after filming was delayed for two years, he was then the right age), the actors’ fight training and how much fun everyone had on set.

Wright says in the featurette that having an actor more used to action movies as Scott Pilgrim wouldn’t have been as surprising, and he’s right. Seeing Cera in Scott’s everyday life is pretty much like seeing Cera in all the other movies he has done, but when he launches on the first evil ex, it makes you sit up and pay more attention.

Even though O’Malley is in the featurette and was involved with the movie, there’s not much talk about the differences between the graphic novel and the film, except for Wright saying that he thinks the changes are in the spirit of O’Malley’s books and hopes fans will like them.

More behind-the-scenes footage is shown in the 15-minute music featurette, which delves into how much work the actors did to learn to play their characters’ instruments. And in the featurette “You Too Can Be in Sex Bob-Omb,” you can learn how to play the song “Garbage Truck.”

For those who want to see more of those great visual effects used in the film, the Blu-ray offers fun before-and-after scenes that give away the secrets.

There’s plenty of other special features that fans will enjoy devouring (in the deleted scenes, you’ll see how many shots it took for Cera to throw that package behind him so it landed in the bucket; can you guess?), but we’ll leave you to discover the rest on your own.

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