In the 'fnar-'fnar-titled Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is a workaholic policeman at the top of his game. He's great at stopping crime, riot control, advanced driving (and advanced cycling!) and popular with the community, but... he's making everyone else at the Met look bad, so he's been promoted to Sergeant... in Sanford, Gloucestershire. Thus, within a short time of arrival, he's already chucked out all the kids out of the pub and locked up the Danny (Nick Frost), the policeman who's about to become his partner. And that's just the night before he actually gets started. But once he is on the beat for real, he's assigned mundane jobs like chasing a swan and stopping a man from cutting hedges that don't belong to him. Before too long, though, there are strange and suspicious murders going on, starting with the gruesome decapitation for thespians Martin Blower (David Threlfall) and Eve Draper (Lucy Punch), and why are the deaths followed by a strange look from Somerfield boss Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton) while playing a related tune in his car? Is he just winding them up? Is it a coincidence? Or does he have something to hide? Hot Fuzz features an incredible cast with so many well-known faces and names, including Jim Broadbent as Danny's father, also a policeman and who gave him the idea of being in the force, there's some fantastic shootouts in a country area in homages to Bad Boys II and countless Hong Kong action flicks and it's further proof that the perfect and most reliable film-making trio are Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I'm really looking forward to the next collaboration. And there's also the word "Skellingtons" which, if you know the reference, will make you laugh a lot. If I had any complaints it would be that, being a fan of any programme or film always being shown in its correct widescreen ratio, while this film is, the clips of Point Break and Bad Boys II are shown in letterboxed stretched across a widescreen TV so everyone looks fat... And look out for moment when Nick Frost throws the Supercop DVD back into the bargain bin section in Somerfield and there's a DVD with the artwork of Shaun of the Dead but the title "Zombies Party".

Director Edgar Wright, who I had the chance to interview following the DVD release of Spaced - which can be read from the link below, makes excellent use of the full 2.35:1 anamorphic frame and the picture is crisp and clear throughout with no problems whatsoever for both indoor and outdoor scenes. Everything is nicely detailed and I also love the whizz-pan shots which are frequently used, even in the most basic of moments of Angel's day as they make a fantastic impact. For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player. The sound is in DTS 5.1 and is well-used not only during shootouts but for the aforementioned whizz-pan shots, various other split-surround effects and dialogue is clear throughout. The extras are as follows: Inadmissible: Deleted Scenes (20:37): A massive 22 here, although over a relatively short time frame. All contain optional director's commentary. I would definitely have kept the one between Simon Pegg and Jim Broadbent where the word 'exacerbate' is used, as fans of Shaun of the Dead will remember its use in that. Also, oddly, in another scene where Nick Frost is handling a DVD box of Point Break, the cover is pixellated out during its blink-and-you-won't-have-seen-it-even-if-you-didn't appearance. All clips are in letterboxed 2.35:1, as is the same with the other extras on this disc. Outtakes (10:22): A worthy selection. Every one a winner! The Fuzzball Rally: Uncut (1:11:09): A documentary on the press tour for the film in America, with optional commentary by Pegg, Frost, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, split up with 14 chapters. The Man Who Would Be Fuzz (0:34): A brief scene with Pegg and Frost doing it in the voices of Michael Caine and Sean Connery, respectively. Hot Funk (3:43): The cast re-recording their lines with TV broadcasts in mind, doing it in the style of Repo Man with deliberately silly words in place of swears. Danny's Notebook: The Other Side (0:21): A different notebook animation to the one in the film. Additional Video Blogs: VW Blogs (21:29) includes test-driving Volkswagen cars for the film, a press piece in Dublin, a piece with various elements such as a DVD signing in HMV in Glasgow, a Q&A Session in Birmingham and the Premiere, while Itunes' Blogs (16:30) are four podcasts with Pegg, Frost and Edgar Wright. Trailers: Theatrical trailer (2:27), two UK TV spots (0:30 each) and a Director's Cut trailer (1:00). The ratios vary between trailers. Storyboard Gallery (20:37): The film in storyboard format. Audio Commentaries: Five of them here: Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright Sandford Police Force: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Rafe Spall, Kevin Eldon and Olivia Colman Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino Sandford Village People: Kenneth Cranham, Timothy Dalton, Paul Freeman and Edward Woodward The Real Fuzz: Andy Leafe and Nick Eckland Also on this disc is a "U-Control" feature, which on this disc gives you, throughout the film, storyboards and extra info, the latter in the form of the 'fuzz-o-meter'. That rounds off the massive amount of extras on this disc. The menu mixes images from the film with a short piece of incidental music playing over and over. There are subtitles in more languages than I can count, while the 28 chapters is perfectly fine for this movie. However, the menu is incredibly slow to access. Scroll down a list of the 22 deleted scenes for example, and it takes almost a second for each one to pass by, and pressing 'down' quickly doesn't make any difference.

FILM CONTENT n PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2009.

The following is a list of all the Spaced-related material online to date :

2009	Shaun of the Dead Blu-ray
2009	Hot Fuzz Blu-ray (coming soon)
2004	Shaun of the Dead
2004	Spaced: Definitive Collector's Edition
2002	Edgar Wright interview (director)
2002	Spaced: Series 2
2001	Spaced: Series 1

As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B 37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: