Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Things go badly for a small film crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie when they are attacked by real zombies.
Final Cut is Michel Hazanavicius's French remake of One Cut of the Dead, which itself was a wildly inventive meta-zombie comedy. The cinematography earns high marks for its technically demanding long-take opening sequence and the clever layered filmmaking-within-filmmaking structure. However, as a remake it inherits rather than invents its central conceit, keeping Novelty at a solid but not exceptional level — the original's surprise is now known. The plot faithfully replicates the three-act structure of the source material, which works well enough but offers little new. Acting is competent and charming across the cast, with Romain Duris doing solid work as the harried director, though no performance is truly standout. The ending satisfies within the film's own logic but again trades on the emotional payoff engineered by the original rather than earning it freshly.