Quite why anyone thought that the movie-going public needed another low budget zombie-themed comedy I don't know, but that is exactly what we have with 2012's Cockneys vs. Zombies, a simplistic and intermittently funny film, albeit one that is so derivative of other, far better efforts that it's chiefly memorable for so often drawing attention to its own pointlessness. It's a cliché already, given the numerous references made in the other reviews posted here, but it really does feel as though someone took a look at Shaun of the Dead and Snatch and thought 'I know, a film mashing these two hits up would make a ton of cash!', and set about doing just that. It is an unfocused film, at its most bearable when it is directly ripping off it's 'inspirations', though there is nothing here to match the inspired verbal sparring in Guy Ritchie's gangland corkscrew thrillers or the relentless in-jokes of the Simon Pegg-starring 'zom-rom-com'. With its protagonists a group of novice bank robbers, the film is able to both focus on the supposedly fertile ground of East London's criminal element, and at the same time, heavily arm them in readiness for the zombie attacks that dominate the second half of the movie. There are a couple of standout bits of black comedy that give you a jolt because they are in such bad taste (the zombie baby, for instance), but these are offset with far too many other scenes which descend into tedious melodrama. As to the cast, they are largely ineffectual, and quite what potential Richard Briers, one of our most respected actors, saw in either the film or his part is unclear; his doddering old duffer barely makes an impression and his one supposedly hilarious comic set-piece falls flat because it is so poorly paced (perhaps he thought that since his old Ever Decreasing Circles co-star Penelope Wilton turned up in Shaun, he had to do something similar?). Snatch's Alan Ford is clearly the 'marquee' actor in the film, as his screen persona pretty much personifies the vision of East London the movie is supposedly built around; however, despite Ford swearing in his distinctive accent, there really isn't anything else to bed the story into East London at all – it could just as easily have been called 'Scousers vs. Zombies' and been set on the Wirral with Ricky Tomlinson in Ford's role. Whilst definitely a charismatic and screen-dominating figure (and nobody else in the film has half as much to do), Ford is such a one-note actor that he makes Ray Winstone look like Alec Guinness by comparison. Honor Blackman also barely registers, whilst former Eastender Michelle Ryan's entire tedious performance and appearance (would-be bad-ass putting wimpy males to shame) are just ripping-off the genuinely talented Emma Stone's turn in the infinitely superior US effort Zombieland. Don't bother, really.
Review of Cockneys vs Zombies
