Note: Oblique spoilers ahead
Since I began this blog, I have desperately tried to avoid my previous post-film ritual - running to the Internet to see what other people thought about the movie. I like to keep my own impressions fresh without watering them down with others' commentary. With Hot Fuzz, I just couldn't resist - the film turns from a cheeky country vs. city British comedy into something far more absurd, and I had to know what others thought about it.
Hot Fuzz runs into a problem that comedy films often do - to play something as big and ridiculous as possible, hoping that big laughs follow. My suspicion is that Animal House is not considered a comedy classic because of its anarchic final scene; Hot Fuzz goes for a similarly big climax and misfires.
One thing the film makes great use of is editing - a lot of jokes are created simply by the way the film is cut. It's reminiscent of Requiem for a Dream, as well as those British movies where British people shout in British accents about a lot of gangster stuff. It's rather ingenious.
The film is probably better than I am giving it credit for being, but it runs long and much of the humor derives from parody; being inundated with parody all over television and film, I may be immune to thinking that parody is at all clever. It's probably worth seeing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I feel the same way about Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead; I really wanted to love both, and part of me feels like I should have, but I ended up thinking they're just pretty good. Both have some really funny parts and some clever stuff, and I like Simon Pegg, but neither movie really came together for me and I don't know why.
ReplyDeletemeh i thought the whole gunfight with the townsfolk was really too much. the movie had a ton of clever stuff in it, but those scenes just went on forever. action scenes are really kind of shitty when there's nothing at stake character-wise, imo, though i will say the fight in the model village was hilarious.
ReplyDelete