I wasn't really a huge fan of the comics, but I loved the movie. So much that I saw it seven times in theater (an appropriate number). Regardless, it does capture the spirit of comic books and video games into film, and it's delightfully strange and charming at the same time. It's one of my all time favorite movies.
It's what so great about this, it doesn't capture the spirit by leaning on the understanding/like of the thing it's adapting, but instead it's like if Bryan Lee O'Malley was an incredible film director instead of a comic writer and chose to make a film out of the idea in his head, this is what he would have made. So even if you don't like the books there's still a chance that you'll like the film, because it's a legitimately incredible film but it did that without having to move away from the source material at all
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How Adaptations Should Be Done
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is an incredible adaptation of an incredible comic book, which means it's pretty incredible itself. It takes the weird/unique style and energy of the books and takes it onto the screen, both imitating it and reinventing it for the new medium. When the film zooms and pans and cuts around, somehow it feels exactly like thats what the books do to.
Even the characters look and feel exactly like their counterparts and more than that, they all feel comfortable and alive in their roles, as if they're as they should be. The two exceptions are Kim Pine, who for some reason (the hair?) is stiff and doesn't seem to fit into the world, and Scott Pilgrim, which is pretty understandable. But Michael Cera does a good job with the role and although it's hard to imagine him as the Scott, he does fit into the film.
The film restructured the plot and condensed it into a film form ingeniously, watching it again it's hard to believe how they manage to fit the events which are deliberately staged over months in the books, seamlessly into film where everything is a lot more immediate. The good jokes are all in there (even if they have to change the people who say them every now and then), there are new jokes that work too, the action is good and they aren't afraid to correct some of the few parts of the books that are less than perfect (the double LOVE from Knives as a tiny example).
Of course it can't quite match up, it has to lose the sense of things taking place at a natural rate and some of the story lines had to be dropped and shortened to fit in. The bigger mistake was the way they changed slightly the reason Ramona found so difficult to get out of her head. In the film they sort of say there is no metaphor (for a joke) but it devalues the events a bit and makes the action in the finale feel a little literal so it can come off as a little empty.
I saw it before the books and I loved, I saw it after I read the books and I loved it more. At first it did feel a bit heartless but its felt less so on repeat viewings. Most of it, including the formula, really is symbolising some pretty cool themes.
But mainly, Scott Pilgrim vs the World doesn't feel like an adaptation of the books, but rather the books in film form. And thats pretty good going.