Theatre Britain

It seems like only the best British films make it over the Atlantic, God bless it. But there is quite a variety: stuffy, costume dramas; intelligent comedies; and the newest James Bond installment.

While we're on the subject, I can't see the appeal of Daniel Craig, the newest Bond. He does bring the character out of that cheesy smirk left behind by Pierce Brosnan. Of course, Brosnan was fine in the role, but did he ever really come across as dangerous? He just wasn't threatening enough to carry it off, so it becomes camp. I love a good action flick, but this franchise is a little tiresome. Although it's still creative in the many wonderful and marvelous ways the human body can suffer death, after watching a few of these, you can't tell them apart.

British comedy is another animal. Thankfully, we're a little more sophisticated than Benny Hill and Mr. Bean. Although I still love Rowan Atkinson's Black Adder. The latest British guy to make me laugh is Simon Pegg.

Run, Fat Boy, Run is Pegg's new film and it's more mainstream then his usual movies. His previous Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are hilarious and ridiculously gory. Shaun is a parody of the typical zombie movie, with the main character having a hard time telling the difference between disaffected, urban neighbors and the flesh-eating undead. Hot Fuzz is also a parody, but of PBS Mystery! series. Can you imagine bloody murder by garden shears in Miss Marple's quaint English village? Seeing the polite, reserved characters from those stories pull submachine guns from their picnic baskets is loads of fun.

With Run, Fat Boy, Run, Simon Pegg has gone all the way over to romantic comedy. Pegg plays Dennis, who left his very pregnant fiance at the altar and has never recovered. So in an attempt to get her back, he says he's running the London Marathon. Leaving aside the impossibility of preparing for a 26 mile run in two weeks, this is a sweet, heartwarming movie. If you like that sort of thing. But it's not done as well here as it could be. And overall, this Pegg movie isn't crafted as well as his previous comedies.

The last British comedy I've seen is Death at a Funeral, starring Matthew McFadyen. While very funny in part, the one gross-out scene kind of ruined the whole movie for me. Which is too bad, since it has a great collection of intersecting plots and hilarious characters. And I have started to love Mr. McFadyen, who I last saw as Kiera Knightley's Mr. Darcy. He was the one thing in that Jane Austen re-make that worked. How did he manage to play cold Mr. Darcy and generate so much chemistry? Even little Kiera couldn't manage that. Her Elizabeth Bennett was petulant and immature.

The last thing I must mention is that after watching a few British movies, you get the feeling that there are only 35 actors in the whole UK. You see the same faces over and over. In Death at a Funeral, however, it was refreshing to see lots of new actors onscreen.