Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Oh boy. How about a hilarious, satirical dissection of the buddy cop genre by the cheeky bastards who brought us Shaun of the Dead? This movie is hysterically funny, if relentelessly silly. I do think the gag here isn't quite enough to sustain the full two hour runtime- it would have moved better at closer to 90 minutes. But I feel cranky even saying that. Honestly, how can you not love a movie about buddy cops in which the buddy cops themselves love Point Break?!

Presented in 1080p using VC-1, the video transfer here is reference quality. It's incredibly pristine, with razor sharp detail. It's obviously hi-def for every frame, but it's also stunningly natural and three-dimensional. The colors look sensational, and there are no artifacts of any kind to distract from the beauty of the image. The depth if detail and solidity of front to back depth is remarkable. This is a very, very pleasant surprise. A stunner, really. Odd, in the sense that nothing here is as appropriate to pull out for a demo as say, The Matrix, but nevertheless this transfer is second to none.

The Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack, presumably at 1.5Mbps, is over the top and down the other side. On purpose. It's literally part of the gag in hyperbolizing everything on screen. By the middle of the movie I was actually tired of hearing my subwoofer crush my house every time a door closed. It was impressive to a point, but actually a bit too much of a funny thing. The bass was loud, but not particularly deep, which made it sound a bit boomy to me. And the dialog wasn't quite as crisp as I would have liked, often sounding drowned out by the bass. But it's all in good fun and it works to the movie's point.

There's enough bonus material here to occupy an entire weekend. Among those I sampled and was amused by were the outtakes, and a brief sequence called The Man Who Would Be Fuzz in which stars Simon Pegg and Nick Front (you guessed it!) recite their dialog as the chracters portrayed by Sean Connery and Michael Caine in The Man Who Would Be King. You really have to love these guys.

My only gripe here is that this DVD/HD DVD combo disc costs almost ten bucks more on Amazon than the DVD. Why not sell an HD DVD disc that's cheaper?

That being said, overall Hot Fuzz is easy to recommend for purchase. Great satire, tons of extras and a sparkling video transfer. Everything HD is about!

Picture: 10 out of 10

Sound: 7.5 out of 10

Video reviewed on Marantz VP-11S1 1080p DLP projector, 80" wide Stewart Filmscreen Studiotek 130 screen. Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player and Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray Disc player via HDMI to Anthem AVM 50. Audio sent as PCM over HDMI to Anthem AVM 50. Ayre MX-R monoblocks and Theta Dreadnaught power amps, and Vandersteen loudspeakers. All video cables by Bettercables, all audio cables by AudioQuest