By CHRISTOPHER ABEL For The Outpost

I appreciate visually distinctive presentation perhaps more than the next guy, but there comes a point where presentation can outshine narrative.

By the end of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” I would have been just as happy to see the titular character end up with any of three lady loves (alone but wiser for his experiences would have worked, too).

Obviously, there’s only one woman he’s supposed to end up with, and the movie eventually reaches that conclusion. I’m just not sure how it reached it. Perhaps because that’s how Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel ended, but for all the visual pageantry, some of the heart of the picture winds up somewhere outside the frame.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is nursing a broken heart and has been for going on a year. He’s still dating, but he chooses low-hanging fruit, like Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). She’s still in high school and easily enamored of an older boy in even a potentially successful band.

But while dating Knives, a relationship of which his band mates do not approve, Scott meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). They strike up a romance almost immediately, perhaps because Ramona is nursing her own damaged heart.

But there’s a hitch: If Scott is to date Ramona, he’ll have to fight, and defeat, her seven evil exes (the gender-neutral term will make more sense later). And they mean business.

Scott can handle himself – who knew Michael Cera could kick anything but a bit of odd grime at his own feet? – but the exes are relentless.

There’s movie star Lucas Lee (Chris Evans), who has his stunt team soften up his foes first; vegan Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh), whose diet has imbued him with superpowers and arrogance in equal measure; the Katayanagi twins (Keita and Shota Saito), who can conjure a dragon with their turntables; and Gideon Gordon Graves (Jason Schwartzman), who might have implanted a brain control device on Ramona’s neck.

Of course, this is all hyperbole meant to illustrate how our romantic pasts can impact our romantic present, even our future. How the film goes about demonstrating it is just more interesting.

“Scott Pilgrim” makes no illusions about its comic book source material or video game chic aesthetic. It might be off-putting to some viewers, and I’ll admit that the movie seemed so hyper-aware of that aesthetic that I had my doubts as to its enduring charm at first.

But for each evil ex that Scott defeats, a bit more of Ramona’s psyche is revealed and their relationship evolves beyond simple infatuation.

And while I believe co-writer and director Edgar Wright (“Hot Fuzz”) let things get a little out of hand toward the end, there’s much to admire in the finished product.

The cast, including a much more combative Cera, are all pitch perfect; there isn’t a single throw-away performance or part.

And, man, is it original. There’s a legion of romantic comedies, all of them fighting over the same plot thread, but “Scott Pilgrim” is the only one that manages to make an ass-kicking spectacle out of it.

And I mean that as a compliment.