Musician Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) prepares to fight for his girlfriend as bandmate Kim (Alison Pill) looks on, in a scene from the action comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. (Kerry Hayes/Universal Studios)Scott Pilgrim vs. the World announces its gleefully anarchic intentions right from the start. Director Edgar Wright wreaks havoc with the Universal logo by pixilating it and setting it to the clunky android blips of a Space Invaders game. He then proceeds to pull viewers into a bizarro universe filled with split screens, "OMG" inter-titles, scrappy garage rock courtesy of Beck and characters who flirt while shaking it to the Dance Dance Revolution game.

On a purely visual level, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is so inspired, it leaves you elated and trying to catch your breath.

This is the world of 22-year-old Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), the titular hero of Bryan Lee O'Malley's revered graphic novels. At film's outset, the Toronto slacker seems rudderless, hanging out at Pizza Pizza and playing bass with his Sex-Bob-Omb bandmates (including a deliciously cranky Alison Pill). Scott spends his nights on the mattress he shares with his worldly gay roommate Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin), and his days trying to get to first base with his besotted 17-year-old "fake high school girlfriend" Knives Chau (Ellen Wong).

Scott's so-called life takes on a newfound sense of urgency and purpose when he spies his dream girl, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a comely vision with DayGlo streaks in her hair. The two fall into an easy, budding relationship, only to see it marred when a crazed, Bollywood dancing character pops up at a concert and challenges Scott to a fantastical brawl. Turns out, Ramona Flowers has a past, and Scott is going to have to use his untapped superhero powers to defeat all seven of her vengeful ex-boyfriends in order to win her heart.

Though countless film directors have adapted graphic novels in recent years, Wright might be the one who best understands the visual potential in comics. He has the imagination to stretch O'Malley's source material as far as it will go without snapping. On a purely visual level, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is so inspired, it leaves you elated and trying to catch your breath, particularly in its rapid-fire first hour.

The film's eclectic characters are introduced via text that lists their traits in mini onscreen resumés. The guitars at a Toronto Battle of the Bands emit notes that dance across the screen. And when a doorbell rings, the words "Ding Dong" magically appear. Whiplash-inducing pans survey the hilarious reactions on five characters' faces in split screen. The word "Love" floats by like a fluffy pink cloud, and a breakup scene thrusts one character onto an empty soundstage where the world has gone black.

Then there are those superhero battles, where Scott and his adversaries zigzag across the screen faster than speeding bullets, outlined in chalky black-and-white trails and leaving green videogame score numbers in their wake. In the course of the film, Scott duels with opponents ranging from a bass-playing vegan to a feisty vixen from Ramona's bi-curious days to the worst baddie of all, a pretentious renaissance man known as Gideon (Jason Schwartzman). Like everything else in Scott Pilgrim, these battle scenes are staged with tremendous inventiveness and energy. But they also paint the movie into a corner. The viewer is always hyper-aware that there are seven showdowns to sit through, when two already feel like entertainment enough.

Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) takes a walk with Scott on a snowy Toronto day. (Double Negative/Universal Studios)By the movie's midway mark, I started to worry the storyline would never provide the emotion to match all of the brash, technical achievements on display. Thankfully, the sweet poignancy that was always there in O'Malley's original novels does eventually kick in. For all its deadpan one-liners and flurries of action, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is ultimately a love story, one in which the clueless protagonist must mature enough to stop obsessing over lingering ghosts from his own fraught love life, as well as come to terms with Ramona's checkered past.

It's a credit to the film's game, likable cast that Scott Pilgrim's quieter relationship-based themes register amidst all of the flying kung fu fists and frenzied action. In the movie's central role, Michael Cera once again sports a hoodie and sneakers, but he's able to work small wonders within his limited range. His line-readings are incredibly well tuned. When Cera's voice trails off as he says the word "tongue," he suggests that a myriad of overwhelming, libidinous thoughts are racing underneath Scott's shaggy, cauliflower-shaped 'do.

Cera is so immensely appealing that you can't help but root for him. However, it's Mary Elizabeth Winstead who lends the romance its much-needed weight. Her Ramona is the real deal — a tough, smart, mysterious and vulnerable modern-day heroine — and there's never a doubt that Scott is wholly justified in fighting for her. In the midst of a dizzying array of sounds and images that'll make you swear you're touring the attention-deficit brain of an iPhone-addicted Gen Y hipster, she'll make you pause and do a double take.

Winstead emerges as the freshest thing in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — no mean feat considering the movie is plenty fresh in its own right.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World opens Aug. 13.

Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBC News.