Review of The World's End (2013) by Raymond W — 24 Feb 2014

I was incredibly excited to see The World's End, because the previous two collaborations between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy have been hilarious, as well as when they teamed up in Paul. So when it came time to bring an end to the trilogy with one more film I was overjoyed.

With The World's End I decided not to get my hopes up too high or to expect that the film would exceed the quality of Hot Fuzz which in my opinion is the funniest film of the trilogy. But I did predict that I would find it enjoyable and funny, which proved to be an appropriate prediction.

The World's End is sufficiently hilarious, benefitting from the trademark style of crude british humour that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are iconic for. And being placed in a hilariously unexpected and thrilling science fiction thriller setting, The World's End proves to have plenty of comedy and fight scenes for it to succeed as a sufficiently entertaining combination of various genres. It's hilariously well written and has plenty of consistent humour for its themes as a hybrid of the two genres and due to the dedication of director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Only an Edgar Wright film could be a ridiculously plotted comedy combining determination for characters to drink their way through 12 pubs in a believable dramatic and comedic manner with a story about a town of human beings being replaced with robots as part of an intergalactic plan and still be sensibly dramatic, comedic and intelligent all at once. On the surface, The World's End sounds simply like good unserious fun. But it succeeds at being more than that, because the characters in The World's End are all very compelling in their own way so it's easy to sympathise for them and appreciate the relationships that they share. There is a serious undertone of friendship in The World's End, and it's played out very strongly so that it becomes more intelligent that you'd expect it to be or than it even needed to be. And thanks to Edgar Wrights direction, the film succeeds in terms of both meaningful elements story elements and appealing technical qualities.

The story even serves as a strong commentary on society's reliance on constantly attempting to better itself through development of superior technology and how it has become such a demand for people in the world. And as the story goes on until it reaches its well scripted climax, it just grows in entertainment value and smarts. The World's End is a really thoroughly written film which is just terrific.

The musical score in The World's End is strongly reminiscent of the comedically mysterious theme from the sci-fi comedy action film Men in Black. And thanks to well angled cinematography, appropriately paced editing and a dark yet easily visible visual quality combined with great quality visual effects, The World's End proves to have plenty of visually strong elements for it to succeed as a memorable visual experience.

And when it comes to casting, The World's End never comes up short.

Interestingly enough, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have their usual characters switched around in The World's End, with Simon Pegg portraying the energy packed maniac and Nick Frost portraying the uptight and neurotic character who is fiercely changed by the insanity of the situation. And as usual, they make an amiably hilarious duo.

Simon Pegg once again proves himself to be a tenaciously hilarious lead in his fourth pairing with Nick Frost and third with Edgar Wright, and its as if his natural comedic skill has done nothing but grown over the course of several years which makes him even more of an entertaining lead than before, because The World's End possibly features his greatest lead performance in any film, and arguably his most comedically charismatic.

Nick Frost's relentless energy lays dormant for a while in The World's End, and so when it is released the experience is absolutely hilarious and makes a huge impact on the story and the comedic elements of The World's End. And his dedicated line delivery and passion for both the drama and the comedy was just perfect. His chemistry with Simon Pegg proved to once again be the source of much of the comedy in The World's End. And you could expect nothing less.

Like I've said before, I liked Martin Freeman ever since his efforts on The Office, so when he teamed up with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost I was thoroughly joyed. And seeing him working in comedy again with such a viable cast for him to form hilarious chemistry with all the other actors proved to be very entertaining.

So while The World's End doesn't manage to exceed the quality of its predecessors and isn't paced as well as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, it proves to be a hilariously energetic and entertaining comedy combined with science fiction thrills to be a great finale for the Three Flavours Corenetto Trilogy.