Hot Fuzz: Critic Reviews

This film doesn't rely on cheap gags or fart jokes for its humor. Hot Fuzz is what you expect from a good satire, a lot of laughs, smart writing, and a cast talented enough to deliver the goods.

[A] very funny cop comedy.

Think of Hot Fuzz, a British parody of Hollywood-style action flicks, as The Full Monty blown to smithereens.

Plenty of irrepressible fun ... and big, regular laughs.

Though it's no Monty Python, Hot Fuzz is a clever, over-the-top marriage of mayhem and merriment.

Hot Fuzz could easily have lost 20 minutes or so in jittery montages and stylized set pieces. But for viewers in the mood for smart-stupid slapstick, it's a diverting jape.

It's to the Lethal Weapon movies what left-hand driving on a country lane is to a freeway chase: pokey, more than a little daft, but with a bloody surprise around every hedge.

It's a little gloomier, a little coarser, and a lot more cerebral -- oh, and funnier than all the Reno 911! boxed sets combined.

Pegg and Wright are armed with an endlessly impressive arsenal of attention grabbers, from witty editing tricks to a wry soundtrack and a joke-packed script that demands multiple viewings.

Hot Fuzz is the funniest send-up of slam-bang action mayhem since Team America: World Police.

For a movie based on the stunted mental development and perfect action timing of American crime-fighting pics, Hot Fuzz has surprisingly little idea of how to get to its point, or when.

Hot Fuzz is fun, and it's nice to see all the English character actors who aren't busy in Harry Potter films, but it lacks its predecessor's freshness.

The movie duly quickens into pursuits of every speed, and the homage to action thrillers is there in the smallest detail; the clicking of a ballpoint pen, say, is amplified to sound as menacing as the cocking of a gun.

The straight-faced spoof is really quite funny, if you can get beyond the graphic gore and mind-numbing final 30 minutes.

On the strength of Shaun of the Dead, his droll zombie bash, the spot-on Don't Scream trailer in Grindhouse and now this, director Edgar Wright is one of the four or five contemporary directors of comedy worth watching.

The transplanted action cliches mix easily with the eccentric English characters, and as a director Wright is adept at framing and cutting for excitement as well as laughs.

Although Hot Fuzz is a good 30 minutes too long (the ending -- or endings -- are endless), it is also good for long stretches of laughs.

An exuberant, ultraviolent and uproarious satire.

Hot Fuzz is warm at the beginning, too cool in the middle and boiling at the end -- which makes it too close to lukewarm.

Go, laugh and try to figure out the mystery. But be warned: You'll be checking your watch before it's over.

A straight-faced British spoof of everything from Yank crimers and slasher pics to Agatha Christie whodunits and homoerotic U.S. buddy movies.

The U.S. audience may be stung to find beloved action cliches desecrated, but these Britheimers are on to something.

This rude, bodily fluid-spattered romp is like the Red Bull version of every bad buddy police picture a little Lethal Weapon, a lot of Bad Boys, and waaaaay too much Point Break.

What prevents Hot Fuzz from crossing over into already well-travelled Naked Gun territory is the constant bouncing of high-Hollywood style and the timid, teatime setting.

Hot Fuzz may not be quite at its predecessor's mark, but the cast sure is -- they're all, every last one of them, Shauns of the Deadpan.