Even if you’re not much for video games or graphic novels, you can’t help but have fun with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Make sure you see it, or discuss it with someone who likes both, however, because you’ll get a lot more out of it if you do.

Scott (Juno’s rubbery Michael Cera) appears to be just another 22-year-old slacker member of a semi-metal band, until faced with physical adversity, at which point he demonstrates video game super powers to vanquish his foes. And he has many – seven to be exact, the number of bad exes his new crush, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), has, and they all must be pulverized before Scott can get the girl.

Only problem is, he already has a girl, a cute little high schooler named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). He also has a gay roommate (Kierran Culkin) and a know-it-all big sister (Anna Kendrick). Add them to a mass of insecurity, an amusing wit and a deft bass guitar, and you’ve got Scott in a nutshell.

This is a completely original film, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Yet there is the famliar – technology and video games in the film are purposely more ‘90’s than current, probably so it wouldn’t immediately become outdated, but also to give us old folks something to relate to. Co-written and directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), it’s so cleverly constructed and edited that it re-defines its genre, a little like, dare I say it? Avatar did. I have just one question, though: Why not 3-D? Of all films to employ the hot new technology, this one seems like a natural.

—Lisa Johnson Mandell