Shave the Fuzz down a little, m'kay?

It took three days of serious thinking (not counting toilet breaks) for me to figure out what was wrong with Hot Fuzz.

Are you ready?

Of course you are.

I wanted to like Hot Fuzz like a fat boy likes cake—a lot! But when the credits finally got around to rolling, there I sat broken hearted. Val was disappointed as well. I think the biggest problem with the movie was that Shawn of the Dead had made so stinkin’ much money—first in the theaters and then on video.

I think that if Shawn had been a more modest success, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg would have been given a more modest budget for Hot Fuzz.

Hot Fuzz would have been twice as funny if it were half as long. This is my theory.

I found myself bored and checking my watch before Simon Pegg’s character finally gets shipped out of London. Sure, there were some good laughs in that sequence, but they could have simmered it down to the bare bones and delivered it to us before the opening credits were over. Then, when Pegg and his trusty plant arrive in Sandford, we have to sit through another painfully extensive sequence to introduce all the characters and settings—and wow, what a lot of characters there are.

As trim and taut Shawn of the Dead was, Hot Fuzz is flabby and lazy. There are dozens of scenes (and characters) that could have been totally excised from the film and they would never be missed.

I don’t want to sound like the nag that I am, but when Fuzz comes out on DVD it would be great if there were a version that ran about a half hour shorter.

God, what a nag I am.