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Saw an advance screening tonight, and in short, Hot Fuzz is a complete blast and is all the fun that Grindhouse wished it could be. Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright get all the details spot on, from the Guy Ritchie-styled transition edits to the numerous references of big budget cop flicks, small town murder mysteries and even The Simpsons. When I first heard the premise I was skeptical but the film is consistently fresh and hilarious. The cast is fantastic - it's especially nice to see Timothy Dalton chew the scenery - and it's perfectly over-the-top fun. Yeah, at two hours it runs a little too long, but the final twenty minutes are so great it's worth it.

I want to see it tomorrow, but I'm wondering if it's a little too soon after Virginia Tech to find it funny. I'm worried the theatre will be dead quiet.

For what it's worth, the audience I was with laughed heartily even during the shoot-em-up sequences, which are so over-the-top, funny and sans gore that the Virginia Tech incident will be long gone from your mind.

Also, unlike the television ads suggest, the film is not wall-to-wall action. The film spends a considerable time developing the characters of the town, so a good deal of the film is a fish-out-of-water story that turns into something more.

Antoine, that's good to hear. I think I may be seeing it after all.

Barmy wrote:Why does Austin get Freebie & the Bean and NYC is stuck with Electra Glide in Blue??? #-o

Eh? Electra Glide in Blue is wonderful. I'm no fan of Edgar Wright but I'm eternally grateful he allowed me the chance to see it on the big screen in London (he pulled the same Hot Fuzztival schtick at the ICA, of all places).

I thought this was terrible, with one or two too many endings. It was awful sitting there waiting for the next laugh. I'm pretty surprised, too. Now it seems Shaun of the Dead was a fluke, a one-off... Shaun was so fast, slick, funny and smart. Here it just felt like they didn't know how to incorporate their gags into the story, not that it was chock full of gags, either.

Spoiler

If you ask me, the swan bit at the end should've been the last gag of the movie. Why on Earth they thought to go further is beyond me...

Loved it. I can't wait to see what this team does next. Nick Frost's badass line delivery had me laughing out loud. I was only disapppointed by the fact that Gervais didn't show up at all, he must have been busy with Stardust.

Fan-fucking-tastic!

Antoine Doinel wrote: Hot Fuzz is ... all the fun that Grindhouse wished it could be.

Aren't the two films trying to accomplish different things? Hot Fuzz seems intended to be an obvious over-the-top parody.

Andre Jurieu wrote:Aren't the two films trying to accomplish different things? Hot Fuzz seems intended to be an obvious over-the-top parody.

I think both films were trying to be outrageous genre exercises with the end result being a wham-bam fun experience for the audience. In that regard, I think Hot Fuzz was a greater success.

Seen it twice now and it is a blast. As with Shaun of the Dead Wright & Pegg have created a movie that not only exists as top flight, and very loving, parody but also stands as an excellent example of the genre it is lampooning. I wasn't reminded of Grindhouse so much as I was of the remake of The Wicker Man. That Edward Woodward is in it is just sauce for the goose. The movie is over-the-top but in a way that plays fair within the rules of the modern buddy/action movie. And since any real action movie almost always has a sequel, here is hoping Hot Fuzz II happens sooner rather than later. Already preordered the R2 DVD.

See this in a theater before it's gone. Funniest film of the year.

I can't remember the last time I had a more fulfilling experience in the theater than when I went to see this a few weeks ago, I'm tempted to go see it again instead of catching any of the blockbusters this weekend.

Pegg and Wright just have a way of making jokes that are old as dirt seem fresh (see the P.I. Staker gag) - I think a lot of it has to do with them keeping the pace really fast.

In addendum, the filmmakers seem to have a great grasp of how to use a pop soundtrack, the Queen songs in Shaun of the Dead were absolutely perfect and I loved the Kinks songs in Hot Fuzz.

"I'm a slasher... Of prices"

Movie was great, most fun I think I've had so far this year. Casting Dalton was brilliant (as was the fight scene between him and Pegg at the end, paying homage to the first Lethal Weapon I assume.)

As well, drop-kicking old women in the face is always funny.

wow, I can't believe there are so many positive reactions to this. I'm not a big Shaun fan (despite loving the zombie sub-genre) but I saw this with two big fans of Shaun of the Dead (and that Brit TV show) and we all three hated this movie. It just wasn't entertaining on any level. I can't believe all the comparisons to Grindhouse's failure as opposed to this. I had tons of fun seeing Grindhouse and close to zero with my Cold Fuzz/Warm Beer Buzz experience.

blindside8zao wrote:wow, I can't believe there are so many positive reactions to this. I'm not a big Shaun fan (despite loving the zombie sub-genre) but I saw this with two big fans of Shaun of the Dead (and that Brit TV show) and we all three hated this movie. It just wasn't entertaining on any level. I can't believe all the comparisons to Grindhouse's failure as opposed to this. I had tons of fun seeing Grindhouse and close to zero with my Cold Fuzz/Warm Beer Buzz experience.

Welcome to the forum. I'm with you, by the way.

thanks for the warm welcome, I've been here a few years, though. I really do think it just comes down to different strokes for different folks when it comes to entertainment. Even though I had tons of fun watching Grindhouse, I'm not going to nominate it for anything but a most fun category.

I hadn't realised before listening to some of the commentaries on the DVD last night that both Cate Blanchett and Peter Jackson have uncredited cameos! (though they are both mentioned on imdb so I should have been aware sooner!)

It as quite amazing to see almost the entire film populated by recognisable faces - my favourites would have to be Bill Bailey as twins reading either Iain Banks or Iain M. Banks (showing a slight but significant philosophical divergence - I hope Bailey does a routine in one of his shows about the arguments the twins might have over which Banks is best!), Edward Woodward finally getting the chance to head up his own village cult, and Billie Whitelaw showing how adept she can be with a machine gun (it was most likely not intended but I'd like to pretend this was a homage to Thora Hird's gun-toting antics in Went The Day Well!).

Also Adam Buxton's chirpy, barely able to spell reporter. I particularly like his character's scenes, and grisly death, not just for The Omen-esque references but also for the only run-in I have ever had with my local paper - it was when a group of us at school (only five in total!) were taking a course in Latin after school for an extra GCSE. Somehow the local paper heard about this and decided to run a story about our spending time after school (and on a Friday afternoon no less!) studying. So a reporter and photographer came round and asked nice questions about what interested us in the subject, why we wanted to study it and so on. At one stage jokingly (showing we knew we were nerdy but also had a sense of humour about it!) one of the girls in the class said "I suppose we are all a bit strange, really!".

We were then asked by the photographer to go to the school library, stand by one of the shelves and for one of us to pull a book halfway off the shelf - I guess so it looked as if we were doing 'bookish' things! (In retrospect I suppose it must be difficult for a photographer to easily capture a group of people studing for a Latin GCSE in pictorial terms!)

So of course the next week the paper came out with half of our names spelt wrong, an awkwardly posed photo under the headline "'I suppose we're all a bit strange, really!', say Latin students"!

It was my Max Fischer from Rushmore moment and ever since then I've stayed clear of anything that might attract the attention of reporters and photographers, but do strangely enjoy jokes made at their expense!

Considering that the same after school Latin class also caused my Sebastiane embarassment, when I excitedly recommended we watch it for class without knowing about the content of the film, I probably would have been better off just going home from school early and watching cartoons!

Joe Cornish, Adam Buxton's comedy partner, got the short end of the stick in the film though, just getting a unrecognisable cameo in white suit and mask - although that in a way just makes it funnier that he was there!

I quite liked the never-ending endings - when you have that many villains (the sheer number of them turning the film into a farce already!) they all need significant sending off scenes!

This really holds up to multiple viewings in a way I wasn't sure it would for awhile. Maybe the best comedy of the 2000's, And judging from the numerous and almost endless special features on the Blu-ray you could tell it was an utter labor of love the way most films force you to think they are.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:This really holds up to multiple viewings in a way I wasn't sure it would for awhile. Maybe the best comedy of the 2000's, And judging from the numerous and almost endless special features on the Blu-ray you could tell it was an utter labor of love the way most films force you to think they are.

I've found that all of Edgar Wright's films, without exception, improve on several viewings. There's just something about how dense and meticulous they are that makes familiarity advantageous while watching.

It really gels together at it's best when he has Nick and Simon to work with. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World didn't really click with me, and am not sure if it would have the same effect. Oddly, I felt sort of the same about Paul. It's of course impossbile for those three to work on everything together and become a cinematic three-headed monster, but it's nice to think about.