Coupez!

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.

COUPEZ! - The movie with the zombies

It's quite a cross with all these new films. Whether Italian and Spanish successes are being remade in Germany, Swedish films in the USA or Japanese films in France: the directors and producers can no longer think of anything new. But you shouldn't fall for the ACADEMY AWARD winner Michel HaZanavicius (for THE ARTIST) so quickly. Even if his film refers to an original bravura piece from another language area, it is also a clever comment on the tendency to copy successful foreign language films for the respective language area if possible. But with this material it fits perfectly. Pure joy to see France's superstars in such a turbulent action. Romain DURIS (nominated for the EUROPEAN FILM AWARD in the 2000s) and ACADEMY AWARD nominee Berenice BEJO act full of joy. Matilde LutZ (the Italian has been familiar with fake blood since REVENGE) and Finnegan OLDFIELD shine as young actors. The music by two-time ACADEMY AWARD winner Alexandre DESPLAT is also beautiful. I haven't laughed like that in a long time! A blood-red fun that was also the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival last year. The festival bunker must have been shaking with laughter. Do not miss!!!

Not normally too interested in remakes of films in other languages, but Artist director Hazanavicius being involved got me interested, and glad it did. There's a huge amount of fun to be had here - it is as much comedy as horror - with a great cast & director enjoying playing with the B movie concept of it all.

The opening chunk drops you right into the film being shot in a disused building, deliberately wrong-footing the viewer (also leaves you wondering why the French characters are all using Japanese names), only for the later two thirds of the film to show what we had been watching and put it all into context. It's a nice way to approach it and felt quite satisfying (to me, anyway). It may not be genius, but it is fun - make a good pizza night bit of viewing on a weekend.

'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.