Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy

Year: 2004 (Shaun), 2007 (Fuzz), 2013 (World's End)
Running time: 99 minutes (Shaun), 121 minutes (Fuzz), 109 minutes (World's End)
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Simon Pegg, Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, Lucy Davis, Dylan Moran, Peter Serafinowicz, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Timothy Dalton, Martin Freeman, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall, Olivia Colman, Rosamund Pike, Eddie Marsan

It finally dawns on Shaun and Ed how much trouble they're in.

The Cornetto Trilogy is a collection of films written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, with Pegg handling the lead roles and Wright directing. They are only loosely connected, all being about taking a UK-based setting that most of us would recognise and splicing in a story revolving around elements of different genres, alongside a hefty dose of comedy.

Shaun of the Dead was the first to arrive on the scene, and it probably remains the strongest (although it's close). Infused with a love of all things Romero, Shaun of the Dead is a zombie horror-comedy and is not nearly so bad as that makes it sound. Shaun (Pegg) shuffles obliviously through his life, surrounded by his flatmate Pete (Peter Serafinowicz), best friend Ed (Nick Frost) and girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield). None of them really get on apart from Shaun and Ed, and Shaun is struggling to keep his relationship with Liz alive.

The film does a decent job of subtly building up dread as Shaun goes about his day, oblivious to the zombie apocalypse taking place around him. It's a nice commentary about how most of us pay so little attention to what's around us that we might not even notice a zombie apocalypse until it bit us on the face. Luckily, Shaun and Ed do eventually notice, and after lobbing a load of vinyl at a couple of undead in the garden, Shaun hatches a plan to get everyone he knows safely tucked away in a local pub to wait out the whole messy episode.

Shaun takes the lead in the struggle to survive the zombie apocalypse.

The pub as a place of safety is a recognisable motif to probably half the country or more, so even though the unsuitability of Shaun's plan is obvious, it's hard to criticise him for it, because of course it was going to be the best idea he could come up with.

During the execution of his 'plan', poor Shaun gets put through the ringer as his mum (Penelope Wilton) and step-dad (Bill Nighy) have an unfortunate run-in with someone who, in his mum's words, was 'a bit bitey'. In the middle of the jokes and the horror, there is a moment when Shaun has to do the unimaginable, it is deftly handled, and a surprisingly straight-played bit of emotion in the midst of the mayhem. Shaun does eventually manage to get them to the pub, but of course, they still have to find a way to survive, and if there's a more quintessentially British way of dealing with zombies than beating them with pool cues to the strains of Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now' in the middle of a pub, then I don't want to know about it.

Shaun of the Dead is full of those high-energy stylistic choices that have come to define Edgar Wright's film-making technique, and like most of Wright's films, the heightened pace and plentiful jump cuts work well and serve to set it apart a little from the slower-paced Romero zombie movies it homages so lovingly.

PC Angel and his new partner are on the case.

Hot Fuzz followed three years later, and this time round it was the humble action movie that got the Cornetto treatment. Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a star cop in London who gets reassigned to the sleepy English town of Sandford by peers and superiors getting tired of being made to look bad in his shadow. His new partner is local bobby Danny Butterman (Frost). Danny is obsessed with action films and is sure Angel lived his life in London like a scene from Bad Boys.

Some unfortunate deaths, put down as accidents by the local force raise Angel's suspicions and he becomes convinced foul play is involved, and he proceeds to follow the clues (and the bodies, including one outrageously funny death-by-church-steeple), exposing a murderous underbelly hiding in this quiet, unassuming village.

Film stealer extraordinaire, Timothy Dalton.

Pegg and Frost continue to be an effective double act, and they are helped enormously by a superb supporting cast, including Bill Bailey, Olivia Coleman, Bill Nighy and MVP Timothy Dalton, practically stealing the film as Simon Skinner, local businessman and shady character. Wright's gift for a shot or scene is still very much in evidence, particularly in the climax, where Danny has a ball enacting moments from some of his favourite actioners Point Break and Bad Boys 2.

When we come back for a third helping in the shape of The World's End, we're in sci-fi territory; in particular the alien invasion sub-genre. Gary King (Pegg) is trying to organise a reunion of sorts, by trying to get his old school friends back together to recreate a legendary pub crawl from their youth, only this time actually make it to the end. Problem is, during the course of the evening they come to discover that people are being replaced by blue-blooded robotic clones.

A bad idea.

Such a setting is fertile ground for more Wright-conducted mayhem, with well-observed and beautifully delivered jokes fitting in around the energetically choreographed action. The World's End does stretch credibility a little further than the two films that came before it. While Shaun was only ever trying to get himself and his immediate circle of family and friends to a place of apparent safety, and Nicholas Angel was shown from the beginning to be a highly competent supercop and even then he solves a few murders in a quite English town, we are expected to swallow a climax in which the barely-functioning King saves the world from the invasion because the super-intelligent being at the heart of it just gets too annoyed with arguing with him. It's kind of worth it for the exasperated "Fuck it" with which 'The Network' signs off and abandons its plans.

The fact that the lead character is so difficult to like is a risk that on first viewing I thought was unnecessary, but I have since reappraised that initial reaction. The thing is, Gary King is suffering from depression. It's fairly well-known now that Pegg also struggled with depression, and so it turns out that rather than being that way just to piss everyone off, King's character is actually extremely well-observed, and that has the effect of actually enhancing the film, because his character is rooted in complex mental health issues, grounding him in reality, despite all the outlandish events surrounding him. This superb article from Rob at Daily Grindhouse explores the facets of how depression affects Gary King in greater depth and is a recommended read.

Gary and his mates come face to face with proof we're not alone. Then tell it to fuck off.

Three films, three love-letters to beloved genres, three slices of beautifully-mounted comedy/horror/action/sci-fi. Long may Wright, Pegg and Frost reign.

Score:
Shaun of the Dead: 8/10
Hot Fuzz: 8/10
The World's End: 8/10

Reviews out there tend to dig The Cornetto Trilogy the same as I do - see this review of Shaun of the Dead from Kim at Empire, this one of Hot Fuzz from Nathan at The A.V. Club and this one of The World's End from Matt at Roger Ebert.com.