“[Hot Fuzz] weaves together disparate tones and complex plotting without ever falling apart or losing the audience, mostly because of its propulsive energy and genuine enthusiasm.” —Warren Zhang

I saw Hot Fuzz for the first time back in high school. I had recorded it on my DVR, watched it once and thought it was pretty good. The next day, I watched it again, and I thought it was really good. The next day … well, you see the pattern.

Hot Fuzz, unlike Shaun of the Dead’s fairly straightforward send-up of Romero zombie flicks, eschews normal parody for insane pop-culture amalgamation — less Tarantino-y genre collision and more modern spin on the Scary Movie ethos.

Though the movie is, at heart, a bloody valentine to Bad Boys II and Point Blank, Hot Fuzz conveys everything in the language of genre conventions. It grabs bits and pieces from nearly everything you could think of — Michael Bay hero shots, Tony Scott slow shutter shots, slasher pic sound cues, the costumes from Scream, Mike Leigh-esqe rural British banality, gonzo political conspiracy plots, etc.

But unlike the crappy Scary Movie installments or, really, any comedy movie before it, Hot Fuzz doesn’t use references as a cheap look-at-me punch line or even for humor. Instead, the film offers a glimpse into the psyche of sidekick Danny Butterman through its myriad allusions.

We see the movie through his gloriously addled perspective — a world where an otherwise sleepy town might actually harbor a dark secret and where a magnificent shoot-out might actually happen down Main Street.

Hot Fuzz gains a lot of infectious gusto through its unique point of view. The film weaves together disparate tones and complex plotting without ever falling apart or losing the audience, mostly because of its propulsive energy and genuine enthusiasm. Yet it’s so densely packed that multiple viewings are required to catch every joke.

That’s the secret to Hot Fuzz’s longevity, and why I still find the movie funny after watching it more than 100 times. I still find new jokes during repeat viewings; that stupid plot twist gets me every freaking time; and that beautifully orchestrated, perfectly timed action climax never fails to put a smile on my face.

Hot Fuzz captures, more purely than any other movie I’ve seen, the essence of movie viewing — the joy of escaping the ordinary into a larger-than-life world of explosions and dudes in slasher robes — while offering a middle finger to everyone who thinks trashy films are a worthless pastime.

They may be a waste of time, but those explosions certainly are awesome.