Pretty good even if it wasn't as funny as I'd hoped.

Rating: 7/10 (5 March 2017)

This is the only of the Cornetto trilogy that I've seen, and I would hope that the other two are better than Hot Fuzz. For a comedy, it was disappointingly not funny. It was sort of entertaining throughout, but failed to make me laugh out loud consistently. As an overall movie, it was pretty good, though. The police montages and echoes added a nice touch, and the way it called out action movies was fun.
Normally, I find that story structure has a negative effect on comedies, because it forces a ridiculous climax that feels like it has to top all the other jokes so far. This was one of the few cases in which I felt like the climax of a comedy was actually satisfying. However, it comes at the expense of a very slow beginning. It always felt like it was moving fast because of how Angel's cop mind is always on overdrive trying to identify conspiracies, but it takes a long time for anything significant to happen in terms of the overall story. Then the entire third act pretty much turned into one extended action scene, which had some cool and fun moments but got a bit tedious. Still, for all of the pacing issues I had with it, I was pleased that it actually had a story that made sense and didn't have any plot holes.
The characters play a pretty big role, particularly the minor characters. Seemingly everyone in the village has some kind of pertinence, and each one gets a pretty good amount of attention considering how many there are. Our two main roles make a nice buddy cop duo. Nearly every word out of Danny's mouth made me smile with his adoration of Angel and his obsession with cool action movies. Angel's belief in the role of paperwork in nailing crooks was great for his character; partly because American cop movie characters never seem to bother with paperwork of any kind, and partly because it gave us a reason to root for Angel. The only characters I had problems with were the rest of the Sanford police force. They tended to be hard to keep track of and weren't that memorable.
Though it does parody adrenaline-pumping action movies, it wasn't all that satirical. The satire is light, just seen in the overall style of the movie rather than directly making fun of other movies like Mel Brooks does. It really makes fun of small-town life just as much as it does action movies. Hopefully, this portrayal didn't offend anyone, but the ending with Angel finding the happy medium might make up for it.
I would recommend this more as an action movie than a comedy. I hadn't expected it to be as gory and explosive as it was. Most of the action is mindless, but there's a couple of pretty gruesome parts. If you go into it with the right attitude and know that it will not be laugh-out-loud funny, you may find that you enjoy it more than if you expect it to be totally slapstick like the trailer. Most of the humor is more subtle. It probably won't make you grow a six-pack from laughing, but if your in a bad mood, it might succeed in picking you up a bit. Overall Rating: 7.8/10.