First off, I apologize if there's going to be a flame war. I will be civil, aided by the fact that my posting power is mostly limited.
But...
I don't like Scott Pilgrim. The movie, that is. I haven't read the comic. I didn't hate it, I just felt awkward watching it, and didn't enjoy myself.
Now, I'm not saying it doesn't have any good parts. Pretty much everything involving Brandon Routh was brilliant, and some of the Michael Cera bits were also very clever ("I'm getting a life", and the callback later, were both funny, and the passwords required to get to Gideon's party), but the movie felt like it was trying too hard to be witty. Contrasted with Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, which actually were witty, it's pretty much a failure.
The main character is an unlikable ****, which I don't actually mind. Most movie protagonists are, and it's not a big deal. The problem is that everyone is unlikable. Ramona and Knives particularly so, each because of their own extreme.
But the thing that really bugged me was the fact that the movie made me feel bad for watching it. The "video game" bits were stupid, and would make more sense in a bad Mortal Kombat parody than anywhere else. The insistence that everything had a comic book effect was pure gimmick. Adding "ding dong" to a bell ringing adds absolutely nothing to the movie, especially when combined with Edgar Wright's natural camera tricks, which draw enough attention to themselves without help. Wright's film technique in general feels like someone is in love with editing technology, too much so to make an actual film, but it works in his other movies. The perfect example of feeling stupid to watch the movie was the lesbian's battle. "Bi-Furious" would work if you're lampooning something, but the joke appeared to be meant taken at face value. That, as well as the mock-Bollywood sequence, both just made me feel awkward in my seat.
I can't describe the movie much better than "A series of gimmicks masquerading as a movie". I'd blame the comic on this, and in fact it probably does deserve a lot of blame, but this is one of the most indulgent, overly tricked out movies I've ever seen, and I'm a Tarantino fan. I frickin loved Kill Bill. I can put up with a lot of "look at what an editing genius I am and LOOK AT MY MOVIE IT IS SEXIER THAN YOURS", but I have my limits. And Scott Pilgrim bulldozed through them while telling people to look at it.
The Brandon Routh bits, while suffering from all of the things I mentioned, have some excellent lines, so they're mostly forgiven the flaws, not to mention that by that point of the movie I was getting used to seeing sound effects for sounds.
Why, tell me, does everyone think it's a great movie?