Simon Pegg
Nick Frost
Paddy Considine
Martin Freeman
Eddie Marsan
Rosamund Pike

Edgar Wright
Simon Pegg

109 mins.
Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
August 23, 2013

Rated R for pervasive language including sexual references. (MPAA)

“The World’s End” is the third film in the Three Flavors Cornetto trilogy after “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.” It’s a sci-fi-action-comedy film that’s a ridiculous combination of a drinking buddies flick and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” It satirizes the “Starbucksification” (homogeneous branding) of Western culture, British culture in particular.

Gary King, an alcoholic played by Simon Pegg, comes up with what he thinks is a brilliant idea during a support group meeting: reunite with his four best friends from high school. Those friends are played by Nick Frost, who’s been in all of this trilogy’s films and was in “Attack the Block” (an entertaining sci-fi film), Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan. Rosamund Pike, Pierce Brosnan, and Bill Nighy also have roles. So the cast is nothing to sneeze at.

Gary wants to reenact the pub crawl that they almost completed after high school graduation, but this time, he plans to finish the crawl at the pub that they couldn’t last long enough to visit during that first attempt. You guessed it: The name of that pub is The World’s End.

He then convinces each of his friends, now adults, to join him on this adventure. They’re reluctant participants.

When they arrive back at their old town, the inhabitants aren’t quite what they used to be. Once they find out what’s happened in the town to change it and its inhabitants, “The World’s End” turns into them versus THEM.

This film has a lot of energy, for the most part, and everyone seems to understand what good comedic timing is. I didn’t laugh at most of this, but a few jokes made me chuckle a bit. Even when I didn’t laugh at a joke, I got it. Plus, the rhythms are pretty good, until the end, that is. The ending drags a bit and is unnecessarily long. It seemed like they ran out of ideas and didn’t know how to just end the thing. Contrastingly, before that ending, they had a lot of ideas.

Of all of the Simon-Pegg-co-written spoof films (Edgar Wright is the other writer and the director), this one’s my favorite. That’s not a ringing endorsement, though. (Actually, I didn’t see “Hot Fuzz,” and I have no plans to see it in the future. Sorry.)

I wasn’t as bored watching this film as I’ve been watching Pegg’s other endeavors. But I like him best as an actor; he knows what he’s doing there.

“The World’s End” will appeal to people with a certain sense of humor. Overall, it’s well-made … well, again, until the end. I’m OK with it.

Verdict: OK

About: (Source: worldsend)

A signature brew of camaraderie, knockabout humor, excessive quaffing, questionable life choices, hand-to-hand combat, and explosive surprises, The World’s Endreteams director Edgar Wright with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, following their hits Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007).

The tale of The World’s End begins on June 22nd, 1990. In their suburban U.K. town of Newton Haven, five boys in the prime of their teenage youth celebrate the end of school by attempting an epic pub crawl together. Despite their enthusiasm and the downing of a slew of pints of beer, they fall short of seeing their quest through, to the last pub on their list, The World’s End.

Twenty-odd years later, “the five musketeers” have each left their hometown and are now husbands, fathers, men with careers – with the flashing-red-light exception of their voluble onetime ringleader, Gary King (Simon Pegg), who is now a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens. The irrepressible Gary, keenly aware of his estrangement from his onetime closest friend Andy (Nick Frost), becomes hellbent on trying “The Golden Mile” drinking marathon again. He convinces Andy, Steven (Paddy Considine), Oliver (Martin Freeman), and Peter (Eddie Marsan) to stage an encore, and one Friday afternoon they are all reunited. Gary is in his element: the mandate is one night, five guys, twelve pubs – imbibing at least one pint apiece at each establishment. Arriving in Newton Haven, they re-encounter Oliver’s sister Sam (Rosamund Pike), for whom Gary and Steven each still carry a torch.

As the gang attempts along the way to reconcile their past and present, an increasingly insane and dangerous series of encounters with old haunts and acquaintances makes them realize that the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind’s. Reaching The World’s End is the least of their worries…