Simon Pegg and Nick Frost close out the Cornetto trilogy in style!
The World’s End tells the story of five best friends who when they were younger did everything together. One night before moving out of their small home town, the friends attempt to do an epic pub crawl which ends at the World’s End Pub. The friends sadly never make it to the end of the pub crawl and after this last huge celebration together, the friends decide to move on and start their lives. Now, 20 years later, Gary (Simon Pegg) decides that he should get the boys back together and complete this pub crawl once and for all.
If you are a fan of Edgar Wright and his previous outings with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost than I truly believe that you will enjoy this so-called “end of the trilogy” film. I was a huge fan of Shaun of the Dead as well as Hot Fuzz, so I was really excited to see this film. Unlike most others, I personally didn’t care for This is the End, which was the other end of the world comedy that opened earlier this year. Needless to say, Wright, Pegg, and Frost have once again crafted a film that is smart, clever, and well-written as opposed to something that relies mainly on penis and cum jokes.
I will admit, however, that out of the Cornetto trilogy, I did find that The World’s End was the weakest film of the bunch even if I did really enjoy it. I think the biggest difference between The World’s End and the two previous films in this trilogy was the character engagement. Both Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead focused very heavily on the relationship between Frost and Pegg’s characters while The World’s End included three other characters who played a pretty significant role in the story. What I am ultimately saying is that I felt that this film didn’t have as much witty back and forth between Nick and Simon like we have gotten in the previous outings, but when it does happen its just as fun.
Besides missing more of the back and forth banter between Frost and Pegg, the movie for the most part was just as fun and entertaining as the previous two films. I like what Simon and Nick did with the story and how it served as a social commentary at times. There is one point in the film where Gary states “Life is all a lie” and beings to rant about him wanting to achieve so much, but hasn’t been able to and all he wants to do now is complete one thing in life, which is the pub crawl.
The social commentary in this film really spoke to me as a viewer because its so damn true about our society. We are always trying to reach goals that so many just can’t realistically reach and we deal with it by simply distracting ourselves with other things such as going to a series of bars, feeling as part of a group in church setting, or even just losing yourself in a film. I really loved that for a comedy film how deep this movie went even though to some it my seem incredibly simplistic but that’s what makes the three guys so brilliant at film-making.
As far as the rest of the story, I really liked what the film did with the whole alien/robot plot line. Unlike so many end of the world movies this one had a real twist on the genre and a real reason as to why the events that happened in the film took place. I don’t want to spoil anything for the fans but there are plenty of humorous scenes involving the guys and these so called alien robots. It must also be mentioned that it was nice to see a film about the end of the world and not feature a bunch of CGI, explosions, and toilet humor.
For those who view this film as the “end of the trilogy,” well there are plenty of moments incorporated within the film that serve as throwbacks to the previous films. Those who get the inside jokes will be smiling like a kid in a candy store. I personally think its clever how Pegg, Frost, and Wright managed to include moments that only the fans will get the references to and I think a lot of these scenes played as a homage to the previous films. If your aren’t fans well those moments will most likely go unnoticed, but thankfully the film works fine as both a standalone film and a end of trilogy film so its the best of both worlds.
My only other criticism about the film is that the ending really let me down. I can’t go into too much detail without spoiling it, but there is this whole weird scene involving talking to a beam of light. I honestly said “really” out loud when this scene occurred and based on the reaction of others in the audience, I think they felt similar. Needless to say, the ending was really bizarre and just felt so incredibly “blah” for a lack of a better term.
All in all, while I wasn’t as in love with The World’s End as much as I was with Hot Fuzz and Shaun of The Dead, I still really dug this film and appreciated the bar it set for end of the world comedies. As I said within my review, I always appreciate the work of these three guys because they are always doing something that is smart within the context of their films. The World’s End is consistently entertaining and serves as a social commentary to how the world is today. The film has its own unique take on the subject matter and is much different from the other films that we have seen about the topic. When all is said and done there is no denying that whenever Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost get together that they have a blast and was as audience members do too.
MovieManMenzel’s final rating for The World’s End is a 7.5 out of 10.
