great idea, bad follow-through

Rating: 4/10 (5 March 2005)

A great idea - to send-up zombie movies - just doesn't hold up. (BTW, before I get going, I haven't ever had an opportunity to watch "spaced", so it could be that some of the problems I found are because the in-jokes are lost on me. But even so...)
I loved the beginning of this movie -- the ignored snatches of newscasts, the slowly building feeling of things getting out of control, all done very cleverly (the z-day scene in the snack-shop was great!) It seemed to me, though, that the writer and directory kind of ran out of creative steam, and became more interested in little vignettes, at the expense of the general narrative (most specifically once the escape to the pub begins). Characters seemed alternatively oblivious to their situation and sharply aware of it; for instance collecting weapons, then abandoning them -- but not replacing them (so that after laying about with all sorts of useful implements, they spend vast amounts of time getting to the pub and inside of it totally unarmed, despite repeated opportunities). This takes farce into the realm of ridiculousness, as characters spend apparently endless time doing suicidally dumb things (like arguing, answering phones, etc.) while the zombies take five (or something). There's a line of farce just like there is a line of 'suspension of disbelief' -- disbelief doesn't apply here, but once you cross the line of farce, the audience (or at least me) won't pay attention to the attempts at humor any more. The viewer gives up, as I did, and so I couldn't enjoy the second half of the movie.
A shame, really --'Shawn' had a LOT of potential. If the wit of the first half had extended to whole thing, it would have been quite a gem. It could have been up on the level of the Evil Dead series, but I think it missed the mark rather widely.