Edgar Wright Marathon Part II of V, 2nd Viewing
Back on the Cornetto trilogy!
Just from the opening ten minutes alone, you can already tell that Hot Fuzz is going to have around double the laughs and double the amount of intricately though-out pizazz than Shaun of the Dead had. It’s no kidding that Edgar Wright has vastly improved in his quick-cut awareness of visual storytelling in the matter of only three effective years, and it makes plenty of sense that many have chosen to crown Hot Fuzz in recent years over the iconic cult phenomena that is Shaun of the Dead.
Officer Angel (AKA, the biggest law-enforcing, cock-blocking, party-pooper of the century) staggers in as the classical man who’s obsessed with his job but completely detached from the rest of the assets in his life. As one could presume, karma decides to bite him in the back, ultimately forcing him to move from the city of London and become a chief officer in a wee town on the countryside known as Sandford. Hot Fuzz from thereon out presents itself as one of the most relentlessly stylized movies to ever hop the factory lines of cinematic produce. Should this circumstance be remarked as a pro or con? Well, that seems to really come down to the viewer’s taste, or more so their number of sustainable energy—cause boy is this movie a rollercoaster. I’ll tell you this, howbeit, this viewer (me) approves of Wright’s excessively flamboyant flair. Call me, cuckoo for seizure-esc filmmaking!
I do, however, have the same issues with Wright’s writing as I had previously mentioned in my Shaun of the Dead review—watered-down clichés, an unhealthy level of predictability, too familiar of a formula, etc. I think it’s safe to say that Wright’s scripts flourish particularly when it comes to their comedy and parodying of genres rather than when it comes to their moral pointers or narrative routes. Hot Fuzz is furthermore bombarded with significantly more action spectacles than its predecessor, but at this point in Wright’s career, I don’t think he’d mastered his action directing quite yet—that would happen later in his 2017 hit, Baby Driver. There are a whale-load of nauseating cuts and obvious outcomes within some of the execution of these hot and heavy battle sequences.
In spite of the movie’s defects amongst its forgettable themes and half-in-half-ily directed/edited action, I do think it accomplishes miracles in its genre-blending. Hot Fuzz works best as a The Wicker Man parody and a creative homage to both Kurosawa and Leone’s “a man walks into a village” genre. Wright brims the film up with some of the oddest mixes of gore and satire in film history and it truly comes off as a one-of-a-kind alteration regardless of its other very much conventional characteristics.
“Unusually entertaining” is a phrase that I think fits snuggly next to Edgar Wright’s line of work, and this police force knockout of his elevates this claim by substantial matters. It appears that Hot Fuzz still remains to be my favorite of Wright’s infamous trilogy. All though, I do still have yet to rewatch At World’s End…
Verdict: B+
The Kings of Comedy (Ranked List)
“Hot Fuzz” is now available to stream on YouTube, Vudu, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
Burning the Celluloid 
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