 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
|
|
|
 email this review to a friend
It's one thing to watch a good zombie movie. It's another thing entirely to watch a good zombie movie that manages to encompass an entire range of human emotions, from terror to laughter to heartbreak. Shaun of the Dead is one such zombie movie...with an emphasis on laughter as this is, after all, primarily a comedy. And a great one, too. Shaun of the Dead focuses on its characters rather than cheap laughs and thrills. Its characters are ones that can be easily embraced as well; they're real people, people that you'd believe lived right next door to you, rather than the mostly one-dimensional slices of cardboard found in most zombie flicks today. You see, Shaun (Simon Pegg) is your average guy in his late-twenties...at least, he's one of the ones who didn't go off to college and make something of himself. He's the manager of Foree Electronics, is repeatedly reminded that he'll be there for the rest of his life, and his relationship with his girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) is becoming strained due to the fact that he still lives with his deadbeat unemployed friend Ed (Nick Frost), and plays video games every chance he gets. When Liz offers him an ultimatum of either kicking Ed out or having her leave him, Shaun tries his best, but still fails. Liz breaks up with him, and his life is ruined. Things manage to get worse. It just so happens that the dead have been rising from their graves for some unknown reason, and have been wreaking havoc all over London. Shaun takes it upon himself to rescue Liz and his mother Barbara (Penelope Wilton) from the zombies by arming himself with a cricket bat (watching him beat the crap out of zombies with it is itself worth the price of admission) and his beat-up old car and taking them to his favorite hang-out, The Winchester Pub, and maybe to finally make something of himself. Shaun of the Dead, though laugh-out-loud hilarious and with gentle pokes and jabs at other famed zombie movies (ranging from renowned classic Night of the Living Dead to cult favorite The Evil Dead), is most certainly not a spoof of the horror genre. Instead, it's a wickedly fresh comedy infused with the goriest onscreen mayhem in years. Kill Bill may have had buckets of red paint, but Shaun of the Dead is chockfull of realistic gut-ripping and entrail-devouring. Let's call it the Landis Effect; as comic genius John Landis did 23 years ago in An American Werewolf in London by putting together edge-of-your-seat horror and side-splitting humor together as one, so co-writer-director Edgar Wright has done with his second feature film. It's the best of its kind in many a blood-stained moon. Wright has done a brilliant directing job, emphasizing both the comedy and the horror in remarkable ways: When Shaun and Ed walk out of The Winchester the night before they begin battling zombies, they're drunk and singing, then they notice a girl making out with some guy; it's a funny, ordinary moment, and one spiked by Shaun's and Ed's humorous reactions. Then they turn around and walk away, and when in the background we can see his head fall off its hinges as she bites into his neck, it's terrifying. It's one of the freshest movie moments in recent memory, and also when you realize that Shaun of the Dead is going to be one of the greatest horror-comedy two-punches you've ever seen. However, Wright is not content with just piling on horror, comedy, and character drama. He also manages to add a refreshing social message: That the people around us are really zombies themselves, going through their day-to-day routine with little zest, just trying to scrape by. You become a hero only when you greet life with exuberance and optimism, and give it your all. Simon Pegg, co-writing with Wright (who directed episodes of the British sitcom Spaced, in which Pegg starred), is marvelous in the title role of Shaun, being incredibly believable in both the comedic and dramatic sections of the film. Nick Frost is also hilarious as his buddy Ed, and Bill Nighy is worth mentioning in the role of Shaun's stepdad, Philip. In the end, Shaun of the Dead is a brilliant homage to the genre of slow-moving braineaters and bumbling victims, but also its own film, one packed with just about everything any moviegoer could want: Laughs, chills, tears. It's a rollicking good time, and one of the only films this year to surmount high expectations. --Courtesy of REELPICKS.CJB.NET-- email this review to a friend
Comment on this Review:
 Subscribe to MatchFlick Movie Reviews through RSS |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
RSS | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | About MatchFlick® | Press | Contact Us | FAQs
Partnership and Advertising Opportunities | Movie Database | Merchandise ©2004-2008 MatchFlick®. All rights reserved. ©MOVIE IMAGES ARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTED AND THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS |