A dead loss

Rating: Null/10 (11 September 2004)

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs
Shaun (Simon Pegg) is a selfish,unmotivated loser who lives in North London.He has badly let his girlfriend down once again and is trying to make amends with her.However,as he goes about this,he fails to notice that the world is in the grip of an invasion of flesh eating zombies and suddenly finds himself forced to fight back.
I started to watch the new version of Dawn of the Dead on Thursday night,only for the DVD to mess up about a quarter of the way through.However,I feel I was still able (having seen the original three NOTLD movies as well as the more recent 28 Days Later) to be able to judge the type of movies Shaun of the Dead was parodying.And it was quite an idea and one I'm sure was executed to the best of the ability of all concerned.
Unfortunately,Shaun of the Dead just doesn't rise to the mark for me.As appealing as the jokes are,it's rarely funny (and I stress the word 'rarely' as,admittedly there were one or two scenes that made me chuckle quite a bit),not to mention overlong for the type of film it is.All the best spoofs from the likes of Leslie Nielsen and Jim Abrahams never rised above the hour and a half mark (if that) and this just verges over it's boundaries a bit.
There's also an unexplainably,inexplicably serious,heavy-handed nature to the film in certain parts,i.e. when Shaun is forced to kill his mother that detract from the silly fun element of the story and appear at odds with the rest of the film.
I see that the film is to be released in the States pretty soon.Given it's good box office takings over here,it's got admittedly pretty good chances of doubling it's success over the pond.I certainly wish it all the best and hope that a different audience can derive some fun from it that I never did.But then,given 'the dead' wasn't a British franchise to begin with,maybe the yanks will be able to see it and go one better.**