Corten!

It starts with a low budget horror movie with very bad actors, but it's already very funny. You have 30 min of 'what the hell am I watching' with bad quality images and all. And then they explain how the movie was made (a movie within the movie, yup), and you laugh even more. It's not clever comedy for sure, it's something where you need your brain off, and it's French humour. But if you ever have the chance, you might like it.

One of those films where you soon realise and appreciate the 'one take' aspect but once the 'scene' had been completed, it really takes-off big time.

I couldn't stop laughing - giggles and the belly sort - when all is made clear. The only language I have is English (at a push) so the subtitles were imperative. All the actors threw themselves whole-heartedly into the mayhem with the initial commissioning to the rehearsals then the actual filming of the film all made glorious sense!

Goodness knows how long it took.

Getting passed the first 30mins turns into another movie entirely and the viewer is amply rewarded.

I must admit that I did not have the greatest expectations for this because it is a remake of a Japanese film - One Cut of the Dead - so recent and with such quality. Still, in order not to have too many spare hours in my day, I decided to watch it. The story doesn't change much. A production team shoots a movie about zombies and then they start being attacked by zombies but... that's also part of the movie. Anyone who has seen the original knows that this ends up working well, being basically a comedy - with meaning and social messages included - about doing a lot with little in cinema. The film seeks to bring something new to the table, by using the original film, making it part of the same universe, which ends up encapsulating some of the novelties and more comical scenes of this remake, but still fails, as it replicates too many scenes that are not the film within the film, which ends up making little sense (for example, the director's motivations, his career, the various behind-the-scenes conversations...).

As in the original (which I loved much more on a rewatch), the first act is weird and doesn't work that well, but that's where the fun begins. The range of actors - which even includes the same actress playing the same character as in the original! - does an excellent job and it is clear that this is also a more expensive production than the Japanese one (which makes us wonder if it will go against the spirit of the original...?).

I confess that I don't quite understand why a renowned director - like Michel Hazanavicius - decides to make a remake of an acclaimed film that is only five years old. However, the truth is that Final Cut is quite funny. I would say just as or even funnier than the original. It is, even so - and despite trying some innovation by incorporating the first film into its universe - too close to the original in 80% of the scenes, so the advantage has to be given to the film that gave us something innovative.

'Final Cut' may be a rare case where the more you know going in the more you're likely to enjoy it. Because of the way the film is structured, the first 30 minutes are very sloppy and poorly put together. We as an audience don't know why yet, so we are just left to think that the whole film is going to be poorly made like this. There is of course a reason for this, which makes the film quite brilliant in the second half. But I fear this one could lose a lot of people in those early minutes, which would be a shame.

This is such a good idea for a movie. I understand it is a remake of a Japanese film with some clever tie-ins. I've often watched one-take films and thought about all the things that could (and potentially are) going wrong behind the scenes that we will never know about.

As I said, this isn't the worst film to know a thing or two about before going in. When I read the synopsis for the film it didn't sound like my thing at all. It really isn't anything like what is described there. This one was a lot of fun. 7.5/10.

A movie within the movie, within the movie... At first it was supposed to be titled Z - like Zombies - but the idea was abandoned because the meaning Z related to Russian army in Ukraine war, the atrocities...So they changed the title. It is brilliant, intelligent, unusual, adapted from a short movie, but for me it was a bit too complex to follow. I was unable to summarize it to myself. The movie takes place in an abandoned gigantic movie theater complex facility, the perfect setting for a film about movies making. As DAWN OF THE DEAD took place in a gigantic commercial center, the perfect setting for a horror film ciriticizing the consumerism American way of life. It is a comedy but, I repeat, worth for the screenplay. It is only a bit too confused for someone like myself. The connection to Russia is certianly not Z, for the reasons explained above, but the movie within the movie evokes the Russian Matryoshka wooden dolls, dolls within dolls.... And strangely, Romain Duris played in LES POUPEES RUSSES - Russian Dolls - back in 2005.