Hot Fuzz (Blu-ray)
The mish-mash of film genres arrives in a fairly ultimate edition
Tags: Hot Fuzz Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Oct 1st, 2009
I wanted Hut Fuzz to be funnier and have less gore. There are elements of the “buddy cop” action genre, the “buddy comedy” and a little bit of mystery. There’s even a bit of horror thrown in, and sadly the balance is just mixed wrong for anything to be effective. Mostly, Hot Fuzz is an action comedy, but it’s too gore-ridden for it to succeed as a comedy. There’s too much drama for it to succeed as simply an action/mystery. Hot Fuzz would work with a bit more focus. Either way, action, horror mystery, drama, or comedy, the film tries too hard to be all things to all audiences and fails.
That’s not to say that Hot Fuzz is a bad film. It is enjoyable enough, when it’s funny, it’s really funny. There are some really god action sequences as well. The story is set up nicely for a really good drama as well. Simon Pegg plays Nocholas Angel, London’s top cop who is so good, he makes the rest of the officers jealous to the point where he gets shoved to a small village. There he meets the usual cast of characters that populate a small town, including those of the local law enforcement.
There are the usual conflicts between big city police procedures and small town intimacy, but they never quite firmly get planted in one genre or another. Some of it is funny, some dramatic, but it is the conflict when a string of grisly murders start occurring that the conflict between officer Angel and the local constabulary, and even the town itself, occurs.
While Hot Fuzz tries and fails to be all things to all audiences, it is still a funny movie if you can get past the gratuitous gore. Part parody, part homage, Hot Fuzzis filled with moments, especially towards the end, that anybody familiar with the action genre will recognize.
For this Blu-ray release, Universal has pulled out all the stops. We get 5 audio commentaries. Some are better than others, but if you’re into the film you’ll most likely want to listen to each of these at some point or another. If 5 audio commentaries seems like a lot (and it is) that is an example of the rest of the package – overstuffed.
There’s a whole mess of deleted scenes, which mostly amounts to snipped bits of dialogue, and again there’s commentary here as well. Storyboards, stills and outtakes are also included. On the HD-DVD there was a featurette on the promotional tour in the United States, and here we get a greatly expanded version of it. Then there’s the short film by director Edgar Wright that was made as a teenager. It comes with its own making of featurette and 2 audio commentaries.
And we’re still not done. Making of featurettes (plural), video logs, special effects comparisons, a bit on the plot holes in the film and more. Really, you could spend week with this disc alone.
On Blu-ray we seem to be getting the truly definitive version of the film. Unfortunately, not everything is in high definition. Still, if you’re a fan of the film this is worth upgrading to simply because there is so much content here. If you have yet to see Hot Fuzz, you might want to rent it because it can be an acquired taste.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ When the film tries, it's funny + Good special features + Even more special features for the Bu-ray |
8.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Tries to be too many different types of films - Not all in high definition |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| It isn't a bad film, but suffers from an identity crisis. As a package, we get nearly everything a fan could ask for. | |
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Tags: Hot Fuzz
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Oct 1st, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
