The World's End

It's the end of the world! Or at least, The World's End. Which is the movie we saw on Sunday night before Labor Day. Evan's back in town for the week, so we put the word out and saw the movie with Jeff, Steve, and Norm.

Preview were for Don Jon, Machete Kills, Last Vegas (The Hangover with old people) and The Family, which was probably pitched as a comedy sequel to Goodfellas. The latter two have Robert De Niro, and Evan is in on both. If I want to see old people, I'd rather see Schwarzenegger and Stallone in Escape Plan, but I suppose I could be talked into The Family.

Anyway, The World's End is the capper to the Cornetto Trilogy, whose previous entrants were Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. All of them star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, are directed by Edgar Wright, and are written by Pegg and Wright. All of them are also spoofs of genres. Shaun of the Dead spoofed zombies (and Romance!), Hot Fuzz spoofed action movies, and now The World's End spoofs Invasion of the Body Snatcher type movies.

It opens with a flashback to 1990, when a group of five kids graduated from school and got hammered, because that's what one does when one celebrates. The tried the in/famous Golden Mile, the feat of having a pint at each of the twelve local pubs. Now, British beer is kinda strong (or so I heard) and twelve pints is not an insignificant amount. Combine that with whatever available substances there are to smoke (illegal or not), and you've got the makings of a terrible hangover. Two friends had to drop out early, and the rest made it nine deep before winding up on a hillside watching the sunrise over their vomit stained shoes. Whee.

Flashforward to the present time, and we get the leader of the pack, Gary King, telling this to a support group of some kind. It might be AA, it might be a rehab centre, it might be some other kind of therapy. One of the other guests asks if he regrets not making it to all twelve. A plan is hatched.

Meanwhile, the rest of the friends are decently successful. They're all in jobs that require suits and ties, and they're all visited by King to make the trip home to undertake the Golden Mile again. A lot of cajoling later, they all agree. I doubt they actually want to go, but they seem like the type of people who are too polite to say no to an old friend, even if he's still acting like a teenager 20 years later.

So they all meet up at the train station and are picked up by King, who takes them on a road trip home in the same car they used to party in 20 years ago (nicknamed "The Beast", although I'm pretty sure guys don't name their cars). They check into a hotel and begin their quest, and things start to get weird. And progressively worse.

There are many times during the night when it would behoove them to turn tail and run back to London, but King won't let them. He's bound, bent, and determined to finish the Golden Mile. Come Hell or High Water. Mostly Hell.

Towards the end of the movie, we find out why in a surprisingly emotional scene. I shouldn't be surprised by now. Wright and Pegg always manage to slot in these one or two genuine moments into their comedies. In Shaun of the dead, it was the titular character refusing to shoot his friend, even after he had been turned. In Hot Fuzz, there was Angel desperately calling for Danny after the police station exploded, or when Angel is convinced Danny's a bad guy. These sudden heartfelt moments in the midst of comedy. I like them. Not long enough to drag the movie down, but it helps us get to know the characters and makes us like them more.

It's easy to like the four other characters, but King starts the movie off like a jerk, and doesn't really get better until near the end. But it's explained, and we actually like him at the end. Not like, say, A Good Day to Die Hard, where John McClane starts the movie off like a jackass and by the end, is still just a jackass. That's not explained, and really annoying, considering how much we liked him in the previous movies.

So this movie does a better job of character development. You know what else it does a good job of? Well, the comedy's there, but you should know that by now. But they did a really good job on the action. I was pleasantly surprised by how much action there was in this movie, and how good it was. I mean, there wasn't enough to fill an action movie, but it was definitely enough to bill it as an action-comedy, like The Other Guys. Great stuff.

The music wasn't really anything I notice. So pass on that. The ending went in a completely different direction than any of us were expecting. The last scene made sense, but none of us really like it. And finally, Rosamund Pike was in it, which is always a bonus. So it gets the Theatre Rating from me.