How do you follow up Shaun of the Dead?

Rating: 10/10 (7 February 2020)

With a budget busting send up of all things action, with a positive skew to our good old boys in blue, and all the silliness of a small village Agatha Christie, Hot Fuzz is easily the most quotable, most detailed and most flat out fun of the Cornetto Trilogy. Is it my favourite? Not by a long shot, but it's hard not to admire a send up of Bad Boys 2 that also manages to be completely its own beast.
Hot Fuzz is so densely packed that it's hard not to appreciate a new gag each time; and although it doesn't quite have the timing and pacing and quality of gags and lines and character that Shaun did, its reverence of the en vogue action films of the time is enough to allow it to shine.
Also very much timeless and a product of its time. It seems Edgar Wright is a talent in this department.
The film that put Simon Pegg on the map as a real credible action/comedy/dramatic star. A film that sometimes buckles under its own bloated complex and layered plot, and its myriad of influences not least of all Wicker-Man horror, Broadchurch style provincial Brit crime mystery, Man on Fire acid action flicks and Michael Bay excess.
It's got broad, British gags, some absolutely blinding acting and line readings, perfect parody/homage, and tight jokes that make up for the fact that Wright struggles against the budget and his still-youthful directing style and forms a choppy and overlong but still robust and entirely entertaining film of silliness.