Not funny, too long

Rating: 1/10 (24 April 2011)

Yes, I DO get the intention is to send up the shoot-out cop movies, and I DO get the references within the script.
But a take-off of a genre has to add something to be successful: merely making the bangs bigger, the blood gorier and the juxtaposition of English Heritage and Downtown LA isn't enough.
I saw Hot Fuzz in the cinema soon after it was released and remember thinking it overlong and not particularly funny. I have just reviewed "Paul" - also a Pegg and Frost movie - and thought I'd better watch HF again to make sure that I haven't missed anything. So I sat through the whole thing on DVD - and no, I don't think that I *have* missed anything. Including the intended point.
When I say "sat through" I mean just that. I have to say that I didn't even smile once.
I suppose - especially seeing the vast majority of the reviews are positive - that I am being over critical. After all, the casting is excellent. The acting is first class. The blood looks realistic, not too Kensington Gore-y. It somehow doesn't gel though: the exaggeration of the Hollywood stereotype in the English village isn't enough to make a take-off movie work.
The camera-work doesn't help, either: a miscalculation by the director.
If I had to sum Hot Fuzz up, I would say that it almost mocks itself without putting an extra edge into the mix, an edge that might have saved a good idea from being an overlong, extended sketch.