There's so many characters quoting things (to make it more literary, perhaps?), so much background lore that's obviously too complicated to bother explaining to the masses, and - yeah - Hellboy's (Ron Perlman opening a weekend!) one-liner's are often rather lame. Try to find another comic book film invested with this much obvious fanboy love and excitement that's also nimble enough to keep its corporate leash invisible. (Hint: It doesn't start with an X.) Beyond its sometimes visionary (yet simultaneously head scratching) digi-landscape, a plot thread about opening a portal for some reason becomes a terrific excuse to wander dark corridors and visualize the superhero as Weekly World News fodder (thereby distancing himself from Spider-Man, as they both seem to feel it's their duty to do what they do - but while Spidey has an alter ego - Hellboy is locked into his mutanoid physique for the long haul). The seamless wonder of digital characters never ceases: The David Hyde Pierce voiced Abe (a fishman who can see the past and future by touching objects and who, for all intensive purposes, could have been the main character without issue from myself), Selma Blair's anger triggered ball of flame, monsters with tentacles and gooey mouths, and on and on and on. Finally, Del Toro seems to have found his niche. (Sequel, please).
The trouble with my starting this notice "If you can get past the fact that people like Theo and Isabelle would never welcome into their world anyone as uptight and rigidly American as Matthew" is that, well, you'll also have to get past how Theo and Isabelle have ambiguously leaning parents (they're too vague, and a key scene finds us wondering exactly what their reaction really was), why their love for the cinema would make them want to join the impossibly nondescript revolution going on outside and, for pity's sake, why in the hell Matthew would even deign to stick around anyone who believes that Chaplin is superior to Keaton. The excessive film clips become a bit bothersome after awhile (more for me, as I begin to realize my mistake in believing 1993 could be the film I wrote it to be); The very idea that these are film buffs seems to take a real quick backseat. Sure, they're all trying to live their lives as if it were cinema - - but it seems like after the opening sequence they just flat-out stop going to the cinema. (Real cinephiles struggle because they can't stop seeing films.) I found the wierd brother/sister bond as flimsy as their choice in friends. Luckily - as brother and sister - both Theo and Isabelle are incredibly exxciting to watch, nearly thwarting the obvious contradiction between how carefully crafted everything is and, alternately, how Bohemian Bertolucci wants it to be. Another terrific set, though; The cavernous apartment - with hallways like tunnels between foxholes - is the silent star of the film. (Every ttime I find myself saying this, I sigh louder and louder.)
The first twist feels much like Shyamalan delivering his norm (which is why - besides its incredible appeal to this viewer - the second twist is so valuable). It's the kind of big, enthralling film you almost don't want to spoil with reality after inhalation; But in between things I could nit pick to death, Shyamalan continues to grow as an artist (this being his most mature film to date without question), and continues to invest sickeningly talented casts into hilariously bizarre details that - while funny - don't necessarily offset tthe graveness he's also become rather good at sustaining. I dunno, it's just the feeling pulsing about, the feeling that non-descript monsters (who are attracted to red) could invade a small, eighteenth century village - and all the bending and interpretation of that obviously wrong-headed logline - that makes his films so worthwhile. As in last year's crackerjack prize Signs, I found myself becoming addicted to the sensory buzz of swimming in the haze of uncertainty; The consistent delivery of surprise over and over again. He tells a story from a point-of-view that's very pro-audience (he's guessing the way you'll see things - - ) and, at the same time, very independent-minded ( - - and, having tricked us again, has guessed right!), but he's always sold as this "master of the thriller". Master of the Thriller? No. Shyamalan is now the reigning champion of cinema as The Twilight Zone. Honestly, have you ever seen an episode you weren't, at the very least, amused by?
(I know, I know, you gotta be in the mood for these things, but here goes...) An aptly titled burrow into the collective nostalgia of those hovering near the latter title age, 13 Going on 30, resoundingly, feels like a remarkable shot at following the cookie cutter of its hook. It's genuinely appealing hook, as I call it, is all things 80s - especially its premise, a veritable (and suitably cornball) "what if" scenario chronicling the sudden burst of maturity to a thirteen year old mourning her own slow metabolism. When it runs with the consequences (i.e. - a thirteen year old in a thirty year old's body, acting almost obscenely goofy) - - we're revisiting the bleakness on the fllipside of twee eighties' movies that just couldn't take the hint. When our heroine - played with unequivocal spunk by Jennifer Garner - finds herself living her dream life (fancy apartment/car service), working her dream job (highrise office/classic 80s gay boss) and hanging out with people who, at first, seem to actually like her (unlike the flashback sequences, where she's unwittingly rooked by a nose-in-the-air cool-girl clique into a counterfeit game of seven minutes in heaven), the film cheerfully calls to mind the New York City fantasy of nearly any film set in the apple between the decade folds. It also has a curious sense of rapidly elapsing resolution (in that it chooses to - much like The Wedding Planner - downplay confrontation and relegate scenes of payback to flashes); All told - it's nothing short of miraculous as a genre piece (and a complete surprise, to boot). I'll be touting it, believe you me, next time I'm cornered into revealing a worthwhile love story. Probably the closest a NYC romance has come to bowling my ass over since the personal prize: One Fine Day (1996).
[Oh yeah, and Mark Ruffalo's in it, too. I forget, do I like him?]
Everything is staged big with no real or actual scope. Mortensen is almost too perfectly cast and rarely does he stop milking the sensitive side long enough to be interesting. The movie itself, as a times-past adventure story, is square and simple, often anticlimactic (the race interests us more than its' politics - but is often set aside); As it repeatedly gives the underdog his time to shine (almost to complete and utter redundancy, but nevertheless), the film becomes - much like Johnston's Jurassic Park 3 or Jumanji - the perfect afternoon escape, reflecting the robust, stripped-down pleasures of 80s Spielberg pics.
Both lead performers are flat-out remarkable (which is good, as all the supporting performances feel achingly perfunctory); The movie's jet-fueled hook - that it all takes place in one night - turns it into the kind of film where the characters talk so big and scheme so out of the realm of reality that, eventually, they become these mythical movie titans, much more fun for viewers to revel in than the wedged, perception-based "who's really evil" debate that might otherwise await them as they leave the theater (All the psychologically contrasting mumbo jumbo between Foxx and Cruise isn't all that resonant, exactly). To go around, there are plenty of classic-in-the-making scenes - some of them nothing more than brilliantly staged moments (the briefcase bump at open being my favorite), many feeding off the uncanny ability for both Cruise and Foxx to think slam-bang on their feet without fear that their actions will render the film's events implausible (from minute one, disbelief is being suspended); Why Mann chose to muddy the film with the HD Digital usually reserved for television, however, is beyond me (It is as if he promises viewers that his immediately recognizable uber-wide photography will look infinitely better on DVD, even though its shape, scope and size beg a theaterical viewing.) Nevertheless, he delivers none other than the intimate yin to obvious companion piece Heat's sprawling yang and he does it beautifully. YES, it's another radiantly competent valentine to L.A. YES, L.A. looks dingey and otherworldly, like graveyard for Christmas lights. YES, Digital still sucks.
[And YES, the best news is that Mann will follow up his cops n' robbers genre entry with a foray into his best habitat: The world of movies-based-upon-news-articles (Arms and Men, slated for '05).]
There's an almost unnerving irony in the naive way Lohan keeps posing as the poster teenie-whore for Disney and the way her character in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is an unlikeable, borderline rabid little twerp (despite the movie's best efforts to peddle her to us as the legendary Girl With A Dream). The deliberately negative milieau (to accentuate the positive, perhaps?) produces little respite. A minor touch worth noting, though: The lead singer of the Dream Band's presence seems to soothe the movie, as Lohan's character is finally - in a brief aside - acknowledging her genuinely phony existence. But this clearly packaged attempt to piggyback prior success (Freaky Friday) also doesn't have anything remotely legitimate to set it apart, either (like Mean Girls being written by Tina Fey, for example).
[For those who guessed I was trying to garner attention in accusing Taking Lives of ripping off Seven - an extended back-patting session is yourr prize. This comparison, I decided later, actively insults Fincher's film. Also, I realized I'd have to spoil - and therefore *recall* - plot points in order to prove my method: And so I cheerfully withdraw the comment. My confession should, in no way, detract from my declaration that Taking Lives really just, um, blows.]
Whether it's the repeated violation of its own, rather promising opening sequence, the nth generation thinning of cop banter, the comforting, obligatory appearance (or shameless gratuity, depending on your perspective) of Jolie's breasts, the forced wierdness of Jolie's Profiler (imagine if every episode of The X-Files used Scully as a catalyst and pretended, blatantly, that she was a progatonist), the rote, forgettable serial killer movie greatest-hits collection (my favorite being the mere seconds that pass before the identity of an exhumed twin is vehemently proved to be - you guessed it - not the twin) and the painfully silly "all along" conclusion that pretends to double-back when merely doubling over. Where Caruso's The Salton Sea decided to become confusing rather than interesting, Taking Lives goes the opposite route, remaining deceptively simplistic all along while, I swear, it assumes we'll mistake it for something complex or absorbing. What's worse, the film's sole surprise is not plot-related at all. It's that sudden moment when Ethan Hawke is called upon to demonstrate his range and wisely showboats, chewing the scenery as if hoping to single-handedly steer the film into self-parody waters. His ex-wife's aptly titled Paycheck is, for sure, the better Canada-filmed throwaway.
The most alarming thing about the film is how it manages to squander the perfectly captured days-past imperfections that come with typical family-shot Super 8 film. Instead of seeing the world of Greendale through avante garde (or cheap) filters, Young (Shakey is a pseudonym) seems to have genuinely instilled in the film a quality of visualization comprable to his own Grandfather of Grunge image. Unfortunately, the power of the shoestring ends right there, leaving the film to teeter on disingenuous (it's not concise or powerful enough to sell it's homemade craftsmanship). Despite the fact that its source music is one of the best albums in recent memory, Young never seems to be interested enough in spinning his fuzzy tale, hoping the extremely broad themes of enviornmental urgency, violent social shifting and media frenzy will somehow seep through the muddle. It's true that I'm not objective in the least (I could pretty much pick up anywhere and rehash the lyrics verbatim), but it's also true that when the vocals indicate a character's dialogue, that character lip syncs (yikes) toYoung's voice on the soundtrack. Instead of being a pleasing string of music videos dreamily interconnected with some sort of acceptable ambiguity, the whole thing plays like an unpolished stage production turned big screen art project. As the allegory runs away with the narrative, the music seems to separate itself from the images. One couldn't exist without the other, obviously, but neither seems to require each other, making it nearly impossible to get anything whatsoever out of either. Bernard's last name is very apropos.
At first, I was ready to demand proof that the great Zhang Yimou actually made this film. Though the emotional heft of his 80s and 90s masterpieces (to which this film bears almost no resemblance whatsoever) is sorely missing here - and would certainly be the breaking point of inevitable (and warranted) Crouching Tiger comparisons - Yimou's sense of forced emotional magnitude (while overbearing in a film as intimate as his 2001 offering The Road Home) is right at home in a martial arts film of such pure scope (and by right at home, I mean utterly disposable). Hero is clearly awesome from the get-go: It's one of the most beautifully shot films in recent memory, with one terrific setpiece after another. It's also a triumph of exceptionally lean filmmaking all around (the sound and vision in particular) despite the sly - if (mostly) misfired - attempt to dress up a history lesson as a kung fu flick. It's being sold as a Jet Li film (almost two years after being purchased over at the 'max), but Hero doesn't really belong to any of its stars (all four recognizable from previous mainstream imports); More than anything, it seems to be about its craft: Exploiting the themes of assassins and kings and lovers on a base scale, a semi-skeleton to support what has to be the most consistent collection of breathtaking duel set-ups I think I've ever seen; Had I seen it on a rainy Saturday afternoon, it would have been an easy A-.
The premise is pure gold (two divers left in the middle of the ocean), but Kentis has no idea how to mine it, attempting a grab bag of vacation-from-hell tones, low budget horror shocks and - to laughable results - shades of existential dread. Open Water is a maddening mess of a film: Ugly as sin to watch (the DV lends nothing to the aeshetic, in my opinion), it's consistently riveting for awhile - - until it dawns on you how little variaation is delivered as it unfolds. Some will praise it - I suspect - on the strength that nothing it preaches seems implausible; This argument may work (provided that you're willing to follow through with it), but it's hardly the point. (Spoilers imminent) Both the best and worst thing about Kentis' film is the way he paints his main characters as selfish louts and seems to take pleasure in watching their despicable undoing - all the way up to and including the finale (which is about the freshest ending to a mediocre-at-best romp I've seen in forever). Kentis's contempt for these characters is nothing if not forthright, trapping the film in a fatal contradiction: Because we could care less about them, when they bite the big one, we're secretly pleased. While I applaud the film for ending the way it does (with the characters defying our expectations and, you know, dying), I can't really endorse a vision that's this apathetic about their fate. Has he killed them off merely to make me feel like a heel for not caring? Where's the motivation beyond mere circumstance? Or - if that's the point - why is that the point?
[It's not as if I can suddenly grow some sort of objectivity so, instead, I'll address things of immediate value and - insanely - extraneous depth which I gleaned wholesale from some of the first necessary DVD extras of all time ("What Happened Next" and "Return to Siula Grande").]
After completing the film - in which I had gasped with genuine disbelief more times than I care to count - I was pretty much floored by the uncanny symbiosis between the staged reenactments and the dry, two decades removed interviews with the principles. As the story unfolded, it was almost an afterthought that these two were even able to talk about it, much less that the film was operating from a level of suspense usually reserved for films where the ending is still unknown. By the time they assume each other to be dead (and Joe begins a feat of human endurance I couldn't begin to scratch the surface in attempting to recount), Macdonald has us wrapped so tightly, it's almost unthinkable that he could falter (although he does, stretching Joe's path of pain out just a hair too long, and thereby seeming just this side of manipulative). The emotion surrounding it, however, takes a decided back seat to the detailed, technical prowess: It barely occurs to you that part of the thing was shot thousands of miles from where it took place. It's the sleight of hand mastery that moves us - - not necessarily the human aspect. Whicch brings me to...
...the extras. In "What Happened Next", we learn that it was several weeks and several hundred miles before Joe was able to get any sort of worthwhile care (in England, where he was driven from the airport to the hospital by angry parents). To me, this seemed as dire - if not more dire - than the expedition iitself; Ratty and undernourished, this guy was forced to endure a further trek across Peru, where only hard currency guaranteed, well, anything. Also, we find out that Simon, Joe's partner, was ostracized by the climbing community for an act that the film nearly forces us to swallow as appropriate (to it's credit, there's fair argument on both sides). Later still (twenty years), Joe Simpson really dislikes having to come back to Siula Grande, a point made and remade in "Return to Siula Grande". While this short documentary wanes on and on, showing Joe curse up a blue streak on his personal video diary, showing Simon and Joe looking indifferent - Simon because he is and Joe because he's afraid everything will think him a pussy if he doesn't - the whole scary, man versus nature rumble of the climb seems slighted in favor of human interest (a tactic that, however practical, is just beneath the level of quality displayed in Touching the Void). It doesn't help matters that both characters admit being coerced with money into returning. And, as if that weren't enough, these two pieces of information - that Joe had still more suffering and that, basically, he's a pompous, bitter ass about the whole thing - give a more rounded, less triumphant flavor to those of us who missed in the theater. They deepen our understanding of the situation, but lessen the victorious tone the film strives to leave with us.
The evocative mood of Young Adam - a dour, grave palette - is a whole lot more interesting (strangely) that what happens in it (as what happens in it is, mostly: Joe likes sex. With anyone. Quick sex in the bushes, quick sex under vehicles, quick sex on a barge, quick sex in alleys. Joe sure likes to stick it in!). This is yet another instance where I can't prove, but will solemnly speculate without reservation, that the source material is mostly cerebral and that Mackenzie had hoped to translate the interior monologues into a parade of simplistic visual metaphors that, luckily, are rather nice to look at. But alas, no matter the film, the mediums must stay divided (cinema to images as novels to words). Young Adam is one haunted canal ride after another, a backstory emerging as a non-specific flashback that deceives us into appearing linear for no particular reason. The protagonist, Joe, is played with an sickeningly rigid, utterly humorless gait by Ewan MacGregor, who almost creates a competitor for the canal in the chip on his shoulder. Though an interesting, somewhat refreshingly level-headed attitude of moral indifference drives the picture, it soon lapses into a strange confrontation between Joe and his conscience, one that seems patently unnecessary (the flashbacks render him equally indifferent before The Big Incident, making us wonder why - all of the sudden - he gives a shit). Strangely, David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) lends his largely forgettable skills as the composer (the makers would have done better to hire fellow countrymen Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap; Their elegiac music matches the tone almost to a T). Also, no one in the film is named Adam. (Better movie about the trials of love on a floating barge? Jean Vigo's 1934 masterpiece, L'Atalante.)
[Greatish scene that feels like it fell out of another movie entirely: Joe has spent the day idle in his apartment save for a custard he made. When girlfriend Emily Mortimer comes home and rags on him for not being productive, he hurls the custard at her - like Pollack with a bucket of paint - before dumping all the remaining condiments in the house onto her body. Then he fucks her. Then he leaves.]
Tony Scott could shave at least thirty minutes off of each film if he were to sit down with his screenwriter and decide who is going to accentuate which point. Instead, we get the usual one-two punch of complete and utter clarity - to the sound of an MTV-style, fifty cuts-per-minute montage. First Helgeland makes the point, then Scott. Sometimes Scott even steps in and makes a point two or three times. Or four. In fact, Man on Fire is so determined to wear on its sleeve what it is (the quintessential big, dumb revenge epic) that it scores points: It's as forthright as Scott's last picture (Spy Game) about what it is: Nothing but popcorn explosions and uber-convenient detective work unraveling amidst forced strains of (heavily) music-enhanced emotion. In short: Pure fun. It's also proof that no matter how lousy or far-fetched the premise (this one falls somewhere between the outlandish John Q. and the more procedural Out of Time), adding Denzel Washington makes it instantly forgiveable, AND, once more, compulsively watchable. The arc on Washington's relationship with Fanning is absurdly back-loaded, his quest for justice met with zero resistance (or retaliation) and the details sped over like harmless bumps in the road. But it works like gangbusters. Washington's scenes with Fanning are warm, guilty pleasures; His scenes of (intrinsically hypocritical) torture and brutality to the men who (you saw the trailer) kidnap her are teeth-gritting guilty pleasures. And though the one-man fighting machine's single-minded bait-and-snatch game played out to recue the stolen girl is reminiscent of January's Spartan (a far superior film you should have rented long before now, in my opinion), it's the polar opposite: While Mamet's film has a political subtext and a symmetrical framework, Man on Fire is cookie-cutter entertainment occasionally murmuring its social message. And hammy, self-parodying Christopher Walken gets to say lines like "his art is death and, right now, he's painting his masterpiece". How can one not look the other way?
[ Fargo alert! For some reason the titles at the end infer that two of the film's characters were real people. A quick zip to the time-honored disclaimer at the end of the credits ("to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental") remedies such misleading pap.]
One could argue that Mario Van Peebles is either the best or the worst person to tell the story of his father's (Melvin Van Peebles) struggle to usher blaxploitation movies (specifically Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song) into mainstream cinema; I'm going to argue that while he's obviously the most knowledgable, he's also the most prone to bias, an inclination he spends nearly the entire running time of Baadasssss! indulging. (I believe one critic called it "jerking his dad off for two hours", which is harsh but close). Thing is, with Van Peebles The Younger playing his strong-willed father - the an interesting flip-flop to appearing, at 11, in a Sweetback sex scene - he's able to capture the fury and frustration of a moviemaker better than nearly any other actor could. He knows Melvin's idiosyncracies partially because they're part of him (osmotically, that is). Mario's performance is engrossing - - and something of a shot in the arm for the film (except when he is forced to lay on the histrionics of his Dad's half-assed/hard-assed parenting; Is he exorcising demons - or do these scenes just sink because they're hopelessly, vase-throwing generic?). Particularly when staging the ridiculous sequence where he outclimbs a financier or the long, obvious-headed build-up before the film finds its audience, Baadasssss! lapses into an overtly gratifying stupor, exposing the limits of Peebles the Younger's range as a director; He's neither as creative or as innovative as his father - but at least I didn't turn it off as I did Sweetback, many years ago (in it's defense, I was far too young and naive to get it). It becomes confusing which Peebles is more of a sensationlist: The one who milked a movement that, in effect, demoralized his race, or the one whose film - while unique in some ways - looks like it was funded by (smalll screen cable "limit pusher") Showtime. In fact, for a film that's such a particular homage, the most striking thing about it is its' love of filmmaking, a pulsing sensation that's evident, warmly, throughout the whole film (blow the car up, wait for the real fire trucks, then we don't have to pay them for the shot). The interview segments show us characters - playing real movie moguls and actors and such - who are genuinely fond of the process. A less agenda-heavy film might have soaked this up with a bit more vigor. Nevertheless, a worthwhile experiment of sorts and often more entertaining than it has any right to be.
I had a great deal to say while I was watching it, but most of that has flown out of my head (Hint: Don't wait almost a week to write about things.) My generic line, in e-mails and things, has been thusly: Part SNL-esque comedy, part so-scathing-but-so-obviously-true-to-life expose (i.e. - I know some of these bitches), part The Wild Thornberrys meets Heathers clique dissection (Only without the murder and not animated) and, with that horribly pat ending - which derails the movie almost insalvageably - part product.
Conran's is a movie that's high on Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars fumes in tonal rhythm as well as fun factor; The whole thing's clearly a blast - the kind of movie that thrives on making us forget ourselves (i.e. - the best kind). Jude Law proves there's no limit to his genius as an actor, this time playing Harrison Ford, Jr. - - the swashbuckling wiseass, thoroughly resourceful (slash blonde) gal - a glowing Paltrow - at his side. Tight little cameos by overshadowed nerd-techie Giovanni Ribisi, strong, respectful woman (complete with fake British accent, again) Angelina Jolie and much touted - and wryly minimal - transmission from the afterlife by Laureence Olivier. The alotted experience of losing oneself in at least one film per year (if we're lucky) is almost too much to take anymore and Sky Captain happens to deliver without the usual catch (it's rare that I'll also preserve the mood by depriving myself of tunes on the car ride home - though, fair point, it wasn't more than a five minute ride). There was never a moment when I doubted its confidence or it's skill. Typically a movie comprised of nothing more than visual effects, matte paintings and animated worlds might seem look-at-me and nothing else (Spy Kids 3-D, for example) or Playstation-influenced (The Mummy Returns, for instance), but Sky Captain is nothing short of pure imagination in the most delectable sense, with its worlds less a pure feast for the eyes than a plotted seamlessness for the characters to flit around in (These characters, by the way, are front and center from start to finish). Action scenes are choreographed rather than scattershot (or, absurdly confusing - - Lord of the Rings, I'm looking in your direction) and never veer into the mentality assumed by gamers. The script is certainly a dedicated homage (probably more to the serial film or comic books rather than features, leaving a sense of expository repetition to cap the end of a setpiece and return seconds later to introduce a new scene); But it's also popping with twists, a feature that seems symbiotic with the whole aesthetic of hiring more than ten FX houses to produce your film. I'm breathlessly anticipating Conran's next film, no matter how bad Sky Captain bombs.
You can't help, while watching, but compare Spurlock's strategy of directive dialogue to that of Michael Moore. Trouble is, for all of Moore's good intentions, he either comes off entirely unfocused (Bowling for Columbine) or just playfully desperate (Farenheit 9/11). Spurlock's strong points are all in line, the big two trumping Moore on all counts (the thing is meticulously researched, with a wide variety of dissenting nutritional opinion as well as vocal backup for the other side, i.e. - the people); His focus is spearheaded by a single experiment (all McDonald's diet for 1 month) instead of a bunch of half-assed ones, and his personality - while cautious - is also humble and everyman-ish. This is a propoganda yarn - true - but with more easily obvious results (and, to be honest, more palpable and relevant ones - at least to the cross-section of America), but it's also entertaining without pandering or sinking to carnival barking. In short, Elbow grease (or burger grease, in this case) pays off: This is one the smartest uses of the new wave of reality-TV ushered documentaries to land to date and is - so far - the best documentary of the year.
Great when its taking apart the slackerdom of late 20s Brits - - if, for no other reason, because it feels comfy and worldly (i.e. - the rest of the world contains people as spun out and ambition-starved as we 'mericans); Less great when it follows its own path (mostly the confront-everyone's-deepest-fears brand third act, itself a gargantuan letdown). Part of the major problem here is that, much like the Scary Movie series, Shaun of the Dead is a parody of a parody (Dawn of the Dead, it's prequel and its sequel were not necessarily meant to be taken seriously: Romero was a gifted jester); Occasionally, it seems to veer into territory that's so silly, it should be relegated to television or a more concise, up-front brand of strung sketch posing as a narrative. But these are all quibbles, and possible sourness at its flat ending. The first part will likely garner comparisons to The Office (reason being - besides the participation of two common actors - that it's British culture marketed to Yanks), and I laughed a whole bunch, I must say. Perceptions of a large population being sedate to the point of zombification (if that's a word) come off lighter and more playful, even as the film begins to trample gore territory; Social critique, however, is (properly) nowhere to be found. Shaun of the Dead surely knows its place, even if it grows tiresome after a mere hour.
[Decided to hit it play-by-play style since (it's pretty clear) the whole thing never even comes close to giving the vignettes a 1 + 1 = 3 advantage; Also, before you ask, YES, I assigned numbers to each grade, tallied them and shit out the average, thereby topping myself in the category usually reserved for the absurdly shameless.]