"Take that, student loans!" -poverty forbearance.
For the first half hour, I was super into it, but then the ending rolled around and blasted me in the face with a thunderous anal belch. They turned strong, willful Ramona into a helpless damsel that needed to be rescued (whereas, in the original story, she just left, and neither Scott nor the villainous Gideon had any idea where she went -- each assumed she was with the other). The ending of the comics was about both Scott and Ramona needing to grow up and accept responsibility for the harm they'd caused others -- the ending of the movie is about Scott apologizing to a few ex-girlfriends and rescuing Ramona, who is literally being mind-controlled by her former boyfriend, because women be shopping.
Big Talk Films/Universal Pictures
"But if she doesn't just do what she's told, audiences will be confused." -Hollywood.
Also, I hated Michael Cera as Scott (I don't hate Michael Cera, but he was completely wrong for the character). Scott Pilgrim in the story is an unreliable narrator, a person who is so completely self-absorbed that he notices people only when he is infatuated with them or he believes they are causing him some kind of personal injury. We are at his mercy for most of the book, because we have no choice but to see his version of events both past and present. It's only when he starts to realize what a shitty person he's being that we are finally given an undoctored view of what really happened. In the movie, Michael Cera awkwardly mumbles his way through obvious lies that are played for laughs. The most unreliable part of his narration is him asking us to believe that he's drowning in attractive women. And that anyone would have ever broken up with Chris Evans for any reason.
Big Talk Films/Universal Pictures