bruceb

I'm a big, big fan of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's first collaboration, Shaun of the Dead, which was a tremendously kind story about losers trying to rise to the challenges of a zombie invasion. Kindness is seldom in over-abundant supply, and there's a real art to portraying nebbishes in a way that invites sympathy and identification instead of just mockery. There's even more of an art to making that happen in a seamless fusion with genuinely good survival horror. When I heard they'd be back at it with cop action comedy, I had high hopes.

Executive summary: all of these hopes were fulfilled. I had a couple of moments of wondering if it would all collapse, but no, it does not. Everything thrown up into the air stays there until it's time for it to come down, and it lands with very nearly flawless timing and comedic effect.

I've seen a few reviews comment that the middle of the movie is a bit slow and would have been improved by losing ten minutes or so. In some ways I agree, in that I did wonder as noted previously, but I'm not really sure I can point at anything in particular and say, "There, that's the part that should go." Furthermore, there's a whole lot of setup going on in there for payoff in the absolutely glorious half hour, a fit of action lunacy to file alongside the end of Hard Boiled and the like.

Shaun of the Dead had a really fantastic cast of folks I was pretty much unfamiliar with. Hot Fuzz has that plus an equally fantastic cast of high-powered celebrities. Timothy Dalton and Jim Broadbent are particularly fine as various flavors of lunatic. And it's worth noting that Edgar Wright and his director of photography Jess Hall and editor Chris Dickens oversee a technically brilliant movie. There is some stunningly good cinematography and superbly intelligent editing, none of which ever calls attention to itself apart from the story it's there to tell.

Throw this on the pile to get, too.