Funny in places, but not as good as most people say...

Rating: 6/10 (16 September 2008)

I am a big fan of the Spaced series, and Big Train, so I was familiar with Simon Pegg and his excellent writing and acting. I went to see this film at the cinema with a mate who introduced me to Spaced. When we left the cinema, my mate was still buzzing off the film. I was fairly quiet about the whole thing, thinking to myself that the film really could have been a lot better.
Sure, they've taken on the zombie movie genre, highlighting the numerous faults with the premise, and along the way they've made us chuckle along. However, this film fails in a number of ways, and could really have been an absolute classic, in Airplane terms.
The primary factor that spoils the movie is the unrealistic nature of Nick Frost's character, and how a friend like him would not be a friend were he to be like he is all the time. He was just too annoying to be accepted and taken as a realistic character. Pegg essentially plays the straight man to Frost's funny man. The biggest contributor to Frost's annoyingly poor character has to be Frost's poor acting, when compared to the rest of the cast. This could be a reflection of the script, which also could have been better, or even a reflection of Edgar Wright, and how he isn't quite there yet with his art, but is close.
Frost spoils the film for me, and for that reason, this film is not in any way a classic. It's worth watching a couple of times, but to be mentioned in the same breath as films like Airplane is something people are too quick to do. It's decent, but not as good as it could have been, with a bit more tweaking and the replacement of Nick Frost with a good actor.