Screenplay Written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright
Directed by Edgar Wright
**** (four stars)
"It's very important that we start creating new content again. We can only build on nostalgia so much before we have nothing left to build on. Before we're rebooting 'Spider-Man' AGAIN. It's dangerous to the culture, and it's boring to me."
-Joss Whedon
I hate to begin my latest review with such words of doom but the current state of motion pictures is in a perilously precarious state these days as superhero movies, sequels, prequels and all manner of re-boots, re-imaginings and re-inventions are the rule of the day, much to the detriment of new, creative and original material plus allowing filmmakers with a personal artistic voice to have their unfiltered shot at the multiplexes and theater houses. Now, truth be told, and certainly if you have been a frequent visitor to this site, you are more than aware of what movies I am seeing and championing so of course, I am plunking down my hard earned money and time to see many of the very same movies the rest of the general public has been seeing. That being said, I am growing increasingly weary of superheroes and re-treads of the same things that I have been seeing for much of my life and my hunger to be surprised again is growling that much more loudly in 2013, a year that has not been at its creative best and a sharp come down from the unusually strong heights from just last year. And then, I saw "The World's End"...
"The World's End," the latest directorial excursion from Director Edgar Wright is the second apocalyptic comedy to arrive in just three months, following Co-Writers/Co-Directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's wildly inventive, bold and brazenly entertaining "This Is The End." Somehow, Wright has created a tremendously exciting, exhilarating and exceedingly well executed equal to "This Is The End" while firmly standing so tall upon its endlessly creative feet. Conceived as the third act in the so-called "Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" with his compatriots Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the triumvirate responsible for the cult classics "Shaun Of The Dead" (2004) and "Hot Fuzz" (2007), both of which I still have not seen (yes, I promise to catch up!), as well as being the follow-up film to the outstanding "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" (2010), Edgar Wright has proven again that he is a filmmaker of awesomely fearsome talents. Wright is a true cinematic magician as he somehow has the uncanny ability to keep this ferociously fast paced film completely on track while also spinning a variety of conceptual plates in the air, keeping them vibrant afloat from the film's first frame to the film's final end credit. Seeing a film this unique, so much of its own universe is blissfully refreshing to say the least and I would urge all of you to head right out and see something that is easily one of the most entertaining and original films of this bloated, and mostly creatively bankrupt summer movie season. "The World's End" is completely unlike anything else playing right now.
Set in the English town of Newton Haven, "The World's End" opens with a gloriously filmed and presented prologue in the summer of 1990 when we meet the five young man crew, led by the irrepressible and hedonistic Pied Piper Gary King, as they attempt to endure "The Golden Mile," an epic 12 bar "pub crawl," which falls apart before concluding at the final pub The World's End.
20 years later, we find our five not-so-young man crew, all estranged from each other and wrapped within the throes of their respective middle-aged lives...except for Gary King (Simon Pegg), for whom the summer of 1990 never ended. Desiring a sense of completion and reunion, Gary, still strutting around in his Goth wear and Sisters Of Mercy T-shirt, brashly invades the lives of Peter Page (Eddie Marsan), Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine) and the embittered and now sober Andy Knightley (Nick Frost) to invite them to return to Newton Haven and attempt their pub crawl once again. All four friends reluctantly agree, climb into Gary's ancient car known as "The Beast," and head back home.
Yet all is not remotely as it seems as the five-some soon realize that reaching The World's End is the least of their troubles...
Now, dear readers, just going from the film's title of "The World's End," it would be safe to assume that there is a cataclysmic aspect to this film and yes...you would, of course, be absolutely correct. But as to the whos, whats, whens, wheres, whys and hows, I will keep a tight lip upon those details as I do not want to ruin any surprises for you and "The World's End" s loaded with them. Edgar Wright has created a 100% irreverent and audacious comedy, fantasy joyride that owes as much to comic book and videogame aesthetics as it does to science fiction and horror films, British alternative rock music, a sharp social critique about our increasingly homogeneous consumerist culture, the novels of the late Douglas Adams, a taste of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, the vibrant, dizzying wordplay of The Marx Brothers and the film even aligns itself very nicely with Ray Davies' absurdist automatronic nightmares contained in The Kinks' albums of the 1970s. How Wright kept even the slightest handle upon this kaleidoscopic cavalcade of material is astounding to me especially as every little moment and element made complete sense with everything else and it all felt so effortless while also daring the audience to keep up with its relentless pace, which can be found in the velocity of the dialogue, the wonderful visual display as lensed by veteran Cinematographer Bill Pope and the breathlessness of the beautifully choreographed fight sequences.
Like the film itself, the character of Gary King rests for absolutely no one and Simon Pegg's performance is a flat out dynamo of comic energy, almost balletic physicality and sheer existential rage. Yes, you read the last part of that last sentence correctly..."existential rage." It would have been very easy for Wright to conceive of "The World's End" as solely a fantastical apocalyptic comedy and just leave it at that, but I deeply appreciate that he and his cast and crew obviously had much more on their minds as they have injected the film with a surprisingly dark pathos that cuts to the core of the pain of growing older, especially when one's best days are long behind them and all they really have in the world are past glories to cling to. This quality places this film very confidently alongside recent dark comedies like Writer Diablo Cody and Director Jason Reitman's unrepentant "Young Adult" (2011) and Director Steve Pink's joyously vulgar but highly perceptive "Hot Tub Time Machine" (2010), as "The World's End" is painfully bittersweet as it examines just how certain friendships are probably not designed to extend themselves past a certain life period and also the very reason why the past is the past in the first place.
For Gary King, his sense of arrested development is fueled by those very hard lessons of aging and the accompanying issues of mortality and that is indeed the aforementioned existential rage that informs every single rash (and undeniably hysterical) decision that comes while trying to outrace or, in his case, out-drink the Grim Reaper. For all of the excitement, slapstick comedy, thrills and audio/visual flash and dazzle, Edgar Wright's "The World's End" is a film that looks square in the face of intense alcoholism, a crippling sense of lifelong failure and even death itself with a wry smile, high energy and an unblinking stature, defiantly refusing to go off into the cinematic good night quietly and nor should it. This is no holds barred, supremely confident filmmaking and entertainment done to perfection and we are so much the better for having the chance to witness something like this especially when Hollywood seemingly has less and less of a desire to produce films that do not already possess some pre-tested source material to fall back upon.
There is so much more that I wish to share with you about this film but I cannot as I would just spoil it all for you but do trust me when I express to you how voluminously thrilling "The World's End" is. Who knew that in this cinematic year, the most entertaining and creative films of the summer would be two apocalyptic comedies? Just like "This Is The End," "The World's End" is a fearlessly dark and hilarious ride, fully designed to blow up the Hollywood rule book and start afresh, blazing its own terrific path.
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