By the power of Greyskull!

I just got back from the Creative Screenwriting screening of Hot Fuzz, the new action/comedy/drama/horror movie by the creators of Shaun of the Dead.

The movie got off to a bit of a slow start, but once it started it quickly turned into hands down the coolest thing ever. I nearly creamed my pants.

Minor Spoilers Ahead.

The movie is about an amazing dedicated cop named Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg who also cowrote the film) from London who's forced to move to a quiet little suburban town where there's no murder rate but people constantly die from suspicious looking accidents. So the overall question for most of the film is who did it. Once we figure out who did it - which will most likely come as a surprise even to those dorks who like to brag about how they figured out the secret in The Sixth Sense in the first ten minutes or something and then fail to realize that by doing that they kind of ruined the movie for themselves - the rest of the film becomes an action-packed homage to 'splosion-filled cop movies like Point Break, Bad Boys II and Lethal Weapon. It's got all the cliches, but the beauty of this film is that it revels in them instead of trying to pretend they're some kind of innovative creative vision. This movie makes fun of Michael Bay but still manages to make the action way better than he does for a fraction of the cost. The characters grow and change and learn a little somthing about themselves and the nature of right and wrong.

There's some gross scenes in this movie that are pretty difficult to watch, like when a guy literally gets his head bashed into his body by a falling rock and we get to observe the now headless body squirting up blood as it stumbles around a bit before it falls. Also, an old lady gets kicked in the face in what is one of the awesomest moments in the film and one of the best cases for a reshoot I've ever seen, since director Edgar Wright said he felt like it just wasn't good enough until he went back and actually showed the boot colliding with her cheek and splattering blood. Yes, old ladies get kicked in the face in this film and you will laugh your ass off at it.

And remember how just yesterday I was talking about realistic fights? Well there's some real brutal fighting going on in this film that advances the plot and provides some genuine conflict and humor all at the same time.

A word of warning. There is tons of heterosexual male romance in this film as the two leads become ever the best of friends, but there's no sex. There are, however, plenty of sex jokes courtesy of the policewoman with the dirty mouth. The only real female love interest is played by Cate Blanchett for all of five minutes with her face and body completely covered up.

So if you like buddy comedies or action movies or buddy comedy action movies, or if you just liked Shaun of the Dead, you will love this film. I did. And as we all know, I live action. It's almost like they made this movie just for me. It makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.