Scott Pilgrim Takes Off - Review: Taking It to the Next Level

Wind the clocks back to the mid-2000s and ask any nerd on the street, chances are they’d either read or had at least heard of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. By 2010, the series had gotten a live-action film adaptation directed by Edgar Wright, a beat-‘em-up video game, and numerous pieces of fan art, music, merch, and re-evaluations. Yes, in the almost two decades since the first volume was published, the world has fallen in love with Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Wallace Wells, and the rest of the world created by Bryan Lee O’Malley. However, there’s also been a healthy amount of exanimation of the series and its characters since it was released. The new anime adaptation developed by O’Malley and released by Netflix feels like a reaction to that: a creator looking at what others have said about his magnum opus and how he might also have changed since it was released and imagining what could have been. And it is fantastic.

With the entire cast of the live-action film vocally reprising their roles, the film follows Scott Pilgrim, voiced by Michael Cera (“Arrested Development,” “Superbad”), a 23-year-old bassist living in Toronto with his friend and roommate Wallace Wells, voiced by Kieran Culkin (“Succession,” “Igby Goes Down”). He’s in a band with his friends Stephen Stills, voiced by Mark Webber (“Laggies,” “Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot”), his high-school ex-girlfriend Kim Pine, voiced by Allison Pill (“The Newsroom,” “Star Trek: Picard”), and their groupie friend Young Neil, voiced by Johnny Simmons (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Jennifer’s Body”). He’s also “dating” a 17-year-old high schooler Knives Chau, voiced by Ellen Wong (“The Carrie Diaries,” “GLOW”), although they’ve only ever held hands. But his life comes to a head when he meets Ramona Flowers, voiced by Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“10 Cloverfield Lane,” “The Spectacular Now”), the “girl of his dreams” whom he wants to date. However, before doing so, he must defeat her seven evil exes lead by Gideon Graves, voiced by Jason Schwartzman (“Asteroid City,” “Mozart in the Jungle”).

That’s how the comics and the film go at least and consider this a healthy spoiler warning. In order to properly discuss the series, we need to go into what happens after the first episode, so if you’d like to remain spoiler-free, jump ahead to the last paragraph.

SPOLIER WARNING

That’s how the comics and film go because at the end of the first episode something major changes. Scott, whilst fighting Ramona’s first ex, Matthew Patel, voiced by Satya Bhabha (“Midnight’s Children”), loses the fight and dies. From there, the show becomes a re-examination of virtually every character in its cast, from the major to the minor, whilst Ramona tries to figure out if Scott is actually dead or if something more is at play.

Fans of the series will likely need to pick their jaws off the floor after the first episode, and this major shift results in a far more emotionally rich and engaging tale than has ever come before. The movie, as beloved as it is, got some flack for watering the morals down and breezing over Scott’s own shitty behavior. The series not only addresses that, but also the thinly written exes and Ramona herself. Gone is the “manic pixie dream girl” wish fulfillment kind of girl that made life hell for so many alt-girls with colored hair in the 2010s.

Winstead absolutely kills it as Ramona, delivering what can only be described as the best performance of her career, live action or animated. She gives Ramona a sense of power and agency that simply wasn’t there originally. O’Malley and co-writer BenDavid Grabinski (“Happily,” “Are You Afraid of the Dark? (2019)” take time to flesh out every character, jumping into various genres throughout each of the eight episodes to do so. There are even times when seemingly major characters don’t even appear for an episode or two, just to everything has time to gestate and flourish.

The entire cast is excellent, and to list them all here would simply take up too much time. But each and every one of them, regardless of the careers they’ve had since, slows so perfectly back into these roles and personas. Science Saru, the Japanese studio behind anime like Space Dandy, Devilman Crybaby, and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, and director Abel Góngora (“Star Wars Visions: T0-B1”) bring so much style and energy to the series, but also balancing it perfectly with the quiet moments required for something like this to have the emotional weight it does.

With killer music and animation, vocal performances, a fantastic script, and still maintain the unique vibes “Scott Pilgrim” has always had, the series would be an easy recommendation already even if it didn’t go beyond all of that thanks to O’Malley’s own self-reflections. He created a series about a 23-year-old guy meeting and fighting (literally) for the perfect girl of his dreams when he himself was just 25. So of course, going back to these characters and story now in his 40s, there would be plenty of changes and reflections made.

What results from this is a more open, honest, emotional, and endearing adventure. These are no longer characters who could be seen as stand-ins for other archetypes or idealized versions of what someone might want. They’ve become real people simply by the act of growing and changing.

END OF SPOILERS

“Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” is easily the best thing to come out of the series, possibly even eclipsing the original graphic novels themselves. It’s just as smart and funny as the series has ever been, maintaining the same excellent acting talent to bring its characters to life, as well as having new life breathed into it thanks to the talents of Science Saru and Góngora. Lead by what might very well be the best performance of Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s career, it’s an adaptation for the ages in numerous ways, and it’s not hard to see it remaining one of the best pieces of television, animation, or media of 2023. It really takes off. 5/5