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Monday 6 July 2020

Pegg & Frost: Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy


In 2004 the first of what was to be coined the Cornetto Trilogy was released, Shaun of the Dead, a cinematic version of a Spaced like episode, written by Pegg and Edgar Wright, starring Pegg & Frost and directed by Wright.


Why the Cornetto Trilogy I hear you ask, well Edgar Wright explained that they came up with that umbrella title after strawberry Cornettos were given away at the Shaun of the Dead premiere after party, they hoped they'd get the same after Hot Fuzz, they didn't, but all was not lost as they did for The World's End, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.




Shaun's stuck in a rut, he has a dead end job, his girlfriend has left him and his life is and endless circle of work, pub, home.
Then along comes the zombie apocalypse and he believes that this is his chance to get his life back on track!


Shaun of the Dead is a homage to the zombie movies of the 70/80's but with the Spaced style twist, it was actually touted as a zomromcom, which it totally is!


When the oblivious Shaun finally realises that the zombie apocalypse is happening he knows that he needs to step up and save the day, and it's also the chance he needs to get his ex girlfriend back!


It is so full of lovely touches, nods to other films and subtle (and not so subtle) touches that make re watching the film over and over again almost essential!
It uses a lot of the actors from Spaced as well, to brilliant effect, as the clip above shows.


Next up came Hot Fuzz, this one is a homage to the buddy cop/villain action films like Bad Boys II and Point Break, which are both referenced.


Nicholas Angel is a brilliant London cop, brave, resourceful and dedicated, which is a bit embarrassing to those around him because he make them look bad.
So he is promoted and sent to a nice quiet country post out of the way, well that's what everyone thinks, things aren't always what they seem on the surface!


Sgt Angel is teamed up with Danny Butterman, the Inspectors son, who seems to have learnt all his policing techniques from Hollywood movies.
It isn't long before Angel realises that there is something not quite right with the village and the current spate of 'accidents'.


It works so well as a comedy action movie, Hollywood blockbuster done in a quiet English village.
We have a lot of the same actors used that were in Hot Fuzz as well as some of the cream of British comedy joining in on the fun, there's a lot of familiar faces!


Finally we have The World's End, so we've had a zomromcom, a buddy cop action movie so it stands to reason that we should finish off with a Invasion of the Body Snatchers sci-fi movie!


Here we have Danny King, still living in the past, trying to relive his heyday, also attempting to finish the epic pub crawl that he failed to complete 20 years ago.
Little did they know at the start of the night that they would become the worlds only hope for survival!


This is the weakest entry of the trilogy, it's a good movie but when when compared with Shaun and Fuzz it just quite hold up, which is a shame, it just doesn't seem to have the flow and cohesion of the other two.
Again a lot of the actors previously seen in the other two appear in this film and even though they play different characters it provides a nice link between the films.

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