Heath Ledger & Hot Fuzz

Was completely taken aback by the death yesterday of Heath Ledger, as I'm sure everyone was. I had not seen a lot of his work, but I was very much looking forward to his role as the Joker in the Batman Begins sequel, The Dark Knight; he looked amazing in the trailer, completely unrecognisable and creepy. His death is a real tragedy, for I'm sure he would have been one of the great actors of our time.

In other film news, I saw Hot Fuzz the other day. Here's my review. [This comment may contain spoilers]

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright score another hit with this intelligent, funny and at times pretty thrilling follow up to their smash hit zom-rom-com Shaun Of The Dead, which I also loved. What was brilliant about that film was that it hit ticked every box it advertised: there was plenty of comedy, plenty of romance (be it between Shaun and girlfriend or Shaun and best mate), and plenty of zombies.

Not sure how you could class this film - maybe an action-thriller-comedy-spoof-ensemble piece. Or not. But there was again plenty of every one of these.

Great writing, great casting, great stunts and great special effects - basically the film is great. It sets a Lethal Weapon-style movie in a small English town that just so happens to be full of A-list British actors like Jim Broadbent, Edward Woodwood and a brilliant Timothy Dalton. The boys have obviously gone up in the world budget wise after Shaun - in the first scene alone we have Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Bill Nighy! The twists in the plot are slightly unexpected and very entertaining, and Pegg and Nick Frost once again make a great double act. My only criticism I have is that there were too many endings, kind of suffering from Return Of The King syndrome there, but I guess that was needed to fully round up the spoof elements to the film.

On the whole this is a genuinely funny film to watch with your mates (though not your Gran). Oh, and there's a couple of really good gory moments in it too. Well, what did you expect? These boys made a zombie movie!

8/10

Here's to Heath.

Laters.