Repetition used the best its ever been!

Rating: 10/10 (6 October 2019)

The movie follows Shaun, a loser in his 30's who lives a comfortable but unfulfilling life that he coasts through like its on autopilot and how he becomes a better and more happy man thanks to the zombie apocalypse and its downfall. The film uses repetition to convey that using cinematography, for instance, identical long takes of Shaun going to the milk bar and back, one time before, and one time after the zombie outbreak happens.
In a way, the entire setting of the film reflects Shaun, he lives with his two roommates, Ed, (Nick Frost) who's been his best friend since a young age, and Pete (Peter Serafinowicz) Who he's known since college. These two characters are the two sides of Shaun. Pete is the responsible adult who has his life together. Ed, on the other hand spend his life on the couch playing video games. These two roommates make up the two sides of Shaun, the lazy and irresponsible man who just drifts through life without dreams or a purpose, and the responsible but boring man who goes to work, gets paid, goes to sleep and repeat. And through these characters is where we find the theme of the movie. Repetition. I've already discussed how the director uses the camera to convey this, as well as characters but he also uses plot and the zombies to convey this message.
The zombies are a metaphor for the average life of the towns people, and just people in general. The opening scene and the scene right before the outbreak conveys this perfectly, the opening scene is a montage of London commuters, all looking bored and identical to the rest of them, like a zombie. The scene before the outbreak conveys this even better, Shaun is wandering around after work, and we see people all around him, and its impossible to tell which have been infected and which are just bored. It's an extremely clever way of communicating to the audience through visuals. Near the end of act one, Liz (Shaun's girlfriend) dumps him, due to him never living life, and just dragging her back to the same pub every night with Ed. And when the whole entire town is finally zombified at the start of act 2, it's up to Shaun to rise up and become someone who is brave and responsible enough to fight back against the zombies and grow up.
At the start of act 2, Shaun and Ed take a car down to Liz's apartment, and we are introduced to the other 2 main characters. Dianne, (Lucy Davis) and David (Dylan Moran) Lucy is probably the character with the least going on, but for the most part is a good supportive friend to Liz. David on the other hand doesn't like or believe in Shaun, he ends up making situations worse due to his distrust, and though near the start of the film, he seems like the voice of reason, due to Shaun's incompetence. but as we grow to like and trust Shaun we grow to distrust and dislike David, he is also seen facing away from the other characters in the film deepening our distrust of him. Another way of using visuals to tell a story instead of just outright telling the audience to be wary of him.
A big part of the film that I haven't touched on yet is its main genre, it pulls from horror and character drama, as well as romance, but, it's mainly, a comedy and it uses the medium of zombies to tell funny and clever jokes constantly, and use the medium of comedy to foreshadow future events, for instance telling someone: "You're dead" as a threat, but then you'll see them in the background as a zombie, or foreshadow the zombie by showing it on the tv
The movie is extremely clever, and every single piece of dialogue is brought up again or referenced in some way later In the film
What really makes the film in my opinion is the editing and screenplay, as well as cinematography and acting. The film is quickly edited, using loads of match cuts and other smart editing tricks to make mundane things exiting and thrilling, parodying over the top zombie movies of the past, but replacing the insane over the top gun-tooling montages with someone brushing their teeth or getting ready for work, adding to the comedic genius that is this movie.
In conclusion, this movie, though not my favorite Edgar Wright movie, (that award goes to Hot Fuzz) is extremely witty, tightly written, well shot, well-paced, quickly edited, funny yet bittersweet and British.
10/10