Movie Review: ‘THE WORLD’S END’

There’s a certain kind of magic in the dream team of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost, longtime friends and collaborators.  After two very successful genre-busting entries with the “zom-com” Shaun of the Dead,  and the “buddy-cop-bromance” Hot Fuzz.  Now they’re back after a few detours into other successful (at least creatively) entities and have a “reunion-robot-invasion-apocalypse” comedy with The World’s End.  The Cornetto trilogy is what this has been dubbed given that the frozen treat makes a brief appearance in all three, but the unifying theme is “man-children.”  Each film has at least one character being unwilling to grow up and holding others back with their immaturity, but none more so than The World’s End.  In the previous entries Pegg was the one held back by Frost, but End flips the script and has Pegg with the Peter Pan syndrome and his young buddies all grown up and leading successful lives when Pegg’s character becomes a wrench thrown into the gears.  It’s an interesting twist on convention, and it’s a love letter to all things youth.

Gary King (Pegg) is close to 40 and is stuck in his 20’s – hard partying, alcoholic, drug addicted, misogynistic.  Back then Gary and his four friends attempted to do a massive, hometown pub crawl called The Golden Mile, which is 12 bars and 12 pints.  Back then they barely got halfway, and now Gary has convinced himself to get the group back together and finished what they started so long ago.  Problem being that the others have all settled into adulthood, have wives, children, jobs, etc.  Three of them are reluctantly accepting, but Andy Knightly (Frost) has major beef and isn’t quite willing to forgive and forget.  Ultimately he gives in after a major guilt trip, and the “5 Musketeers” are back together to get properly thrashed.  But things aren’t quite the same in their hometown; townsfolk don’t appear to recognize any of them, and everyone is acting a bit strange and robotic.  After a bathroom scuffle Gary has with a youth at the 3rd bar results in a decapitation and a LOT of blue goo for blood, the blokes find themselves striving to survive being assimilated.  Their decision: to keep on with The Golden Mile and reach the final bar, The World’s End, so that the “blanks” (as a lengthy conversation fails to devise any other alternate name for robots) don’t suspect that they’re onto them.  Of course the blanks DO indeed know what they’re up to, and comic chaos ensues.

The first thing that’s immediately noticeable once the bathroom brawl gets going is that Edgar Wright has taken what was learned well with Scott Pilgrim vs the World and implemented some unique, clever, intricate choreography to accent his already great action sequences.  It’s kind of jarring and a bit out of place with the established characters, but it makes for some really fun fights.  Among the many homage moments that appear there’s a really cute nod to Jackie Chan’s fantastic Drunken Master films during one of these, which tickled me pink. Outside of this, the chemistry between the two leads and their director buddy is still just as fresh and funny as it was the first time we saw it with the cult series Spaced.  Even more impressive are the returning collaborators Martin Freeman as Oliver Chamberlain, who appeared in cameos in both previous films, and Paddy Considine as Steven Prince, who played one of the hard-ass officers in Hot Fuzz.  Both are at the top of their game here, but the best surprise is Eddie Marsan’s nebbish, uptight Peter Page, who wears a goofy smile and cuts loose as his character gets increasingly drunk.  His reactions are some of the greatest bits in the film.  Also new is the lovely Rosamund Pike as Freeman’s sister who was lusted after in the past.  Another thing I loved were the character names: King, Knightly, Prince, Page, and Chamberlain; their names play their roles.  Super clever move by Wright and Pegg (and Joe Cornish, likely).

It should be noted that I found this to be the weakest of the three films due in large part to some pacing issues, and while Hot Fuzz felt fresh by comparison to Shaun, this feels like an odd alternate version instead of a new idea.  End shares a LOT in common with Shaun, and not in a nudge-wink kind of way.  The film is often very funny, though, and the big reveal at the end and the subsequent wrap up in the aftermath is highly entertaining and rather unexpected, with a final moment that is geeky goosebump awesome.  It had mea leaving the theater smiling and overall forgiving of the shortcomings.  Shaun and Hot Fuzz were both instant loves for me but have gotten even better in repeat viewings, so my hope is that End will appreciate value with further face time.  It might not be the perfect final chapter we were hoping for, but it works in its own right and is well worth a view.  It’s DEFINITELY a must for those looking for a preview of how Wright is going to completely own Ant Man, out in 2015.