Jim's Old-Ass Reviews: Green Lantern & Hot Fuzz

Over a month ago, I decided to rent a couple of movies. Bear in mind we have an enormous backlog of unwatched DVDs, as well as a ton of stuff on the DVR; however, I just felt like picking up something new.

Film #1 - Green Lantern: First Flight For those of you above the age of 5, you may not know that DC Comics has recently started making straight-to-DVD animated films. I guess since Super Friends is no longer out there, they want to make sure their primary characters and stories get out to a new market so that their blockbuster Warner Brothers movies continue to do well.

Some, such as New Frontier, have been pretty solid. This, however ...

I love me some Green Lantern. He's probably only second to Flash in my personal pantheon of superheroes. I like the idea of the interstellar police force with crazy aliens all with the same superhero name and kick-ass ring.

Mrs. The Jim knows I'm a fan, and as this was an origin story of a hero unknown to the general masses, it was a chance for her to better understand the character.

Except it was AWFUL!! Green Lantern: First Flight was boring, poorly written, and voice acting that sounded like a bad drama club read-through. She stopped watching after Minute #1, and I still wonder why I struggled through the rest of it.

It's not worth it to recap the character, story, plot, any of it ... just avoid this dreck at all costs.

Film #2 - Hot Fuzz Fortunately for our sanity, I picked up two (2) films, and left Hot Fuzz for last. For those of you that don't recall, Hot Fuzz was made by Simon Pegg and his group after the success with Shaun of the Dead. (This is not to be confused with Super Fuzz, which is a brilliant piece of cinema in its own right.) In this one, Pegg plays the best cop in all of London, Nicholas Angel. He's so good, in fact, that he's drastically affecting crime statistics and, in the process, making all of the other cops and districts look bad by comparison.

The solution, of course: send the Super Cop out to the country, where there's nothing of interest.

Inspector Angel discovers the new town is boring & his coworkers are inept. Strangely, though, there seems to be an ongoing series of suspicious deaths. As our intrepid hero investigates, he's not sure if he's going crazy due to the boredom, or uncovering some sort of crazy plot. All the while, he has to deal with a moronic partner who is obsessed with every cop flick ever made. Part of the movie actually revolves around the two of them watching Point Break and Bad Boys II. That's right ... you actually sit and watch people watching a movie.

The film eventually devolves into an insanely violent and funny shoot-out between the cops and the friendliest murder cult you've ever seen. It really gets good, as I just couldn't stop laughing for about the last 20 minutes.

For me, the reason Hot Fuzz (and, for that matter, Shaun of the Dead) is so good is because these guys treat their comedy seriously. Every shoot out with a florist or smackdown with a zombie is treated completely straight. They don't tell jokes or make snide satire about these genres. Rather, they just do funny things, and assume the audience is smart enough to understand that it's funny. It's really brilliant work.

Until next time,
The Jim