Rating: • • • • ½
Age Recommendation: 15+
Knowing no more going into The World's End (2013) than what the trailer has to offer, I wasn't sure what madness to expect. It seemed to me that the movie would be split into two parts: a comedic beginning, and a sci-fi action ending. I feared that the brilliant ensemble-driven dialogue about the number of musketeers (among other things) previewed in the trailer would go to waste once the sci-fi elements kicked in. I also feared that this might be one of those comedies where the trailer shows all the best bits, and the rest is all downhill. I am very happy to have been mistaken in my misgivings; The World's End is a blast of in-your-face entertainment that has more laughs than one can count and a surprising amount of heart.
A bit slow at the start as the characters of Gary King (Simon Pegg), Andy (Nick Frost), Steven (Paddy Considine), Oliver "O-Man" (Martin Freeman), and Peter (Eddie Marsan) are introduced as both their teenage and middle-aged selves, The World's End really takes off once we reach that scene I talked about before--the one where the five main characters are discussing musketeers for the first of many times. Fortunately this character introduction does not take long at all, and very soon Gary has gotten the "band" back together through only a little bit of fibbing and a "white" lie about a deceased relative. (The quotation marks will make sense once you've seen it.)
The premise that brings the characters together is goof-off Gary's need to relive--and this time complete--the "Golden Mile," a twelve-pub crawl in his hometown that he and his four buddies attempted as teenagers. His friends, skeptical of the scheme from the start, soon grow weary of Gary's antics. Just when it looks like the pub crawl is going to be called off, things really get weird. Even the squeamish will find themselves laughing instead of cringing at what ensues.
I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that watchers of Doctor Who will find sci-fi elements very much akin to those in "The Bells of Saint John" (2013). This is all fine by me. The introduction of enemy robots-that-aren't-"robots" creates mayhem and more laughs as the five attempt to reach the movie's titular pub, but the real story is found between the laughs and the action as each character reveals insecurities about his own life.
The quick pacing, quick humor, and running gags of The World's End keep the audience on its toes. Even the ending kept me pleasantly surprised, to the extent that it took me several minutes to realize that Andy, who narrates that portion, wasn't pulling the audience's leg. They didn't water it down for an "American ending," and thank goodness for that. For a sci-fi comedy set in a small English town, The World's End is refreshingly out-of-this-world.
Summary: Anyone able to handle casual use of the F-word and mild adult humor in a comedy and not afraid of a bit of action should find The World's End a thrill ride of laughter. There's none of that "dry British humor" that divides Americans by comedic taste, but we still get to know the delicacy of human nature beneath the bravado of our characters' drunkenness, with some blue-blooded "robots" thrown in.
The Good: lots of laughs, lots of heart, great ensemble cast, cute story, fun music for some "robot" ass-kicking
The Bad: nothing
The Even Worse: nothing
**EDIT**
I have now changed my use of the American term "bar"
to "pub." (Happy now, Mom?) Also, in my haste to finish the review, I
forgot to mention the small but charming role of dual love interest Sam
(Rosamund Pike), the role of the town crazy who turns out to be not so
crazy Basil (David Bradley), and the smaller and less charming--but
still amusing--role of high school teacher Guy Shepherd (Pierce Brosnan). I
should also mention that this story could be told entirely devoid of
alien "robots" and still be a charming "dramedy" well worth seeing... but where would be
the fun in that?
