Review of The World's End (2013) by Keenan S — 11 Nov 2014

The World's End may very well by my favorite of Edgar Wright's comedy trilogy. Don't get me wrong, I loved Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz, but there's something in particular that connected to me with this one. The World's End is generally seen as the weakest of the three films, with some lamenting that the film unevenly mixes a friendship dramedy about growing up with a sci-fi film.

Normally, I probably would be among this group complaining about uneven tonal shifts, which is quite a common problem in comedies. Here, I don't think the blend was uneven. In fact, I was very surprised with how the film managed to blend these elements together while never really feeling like there were jarring tonal shifts. To me, this is set to go down as not only one of my favorite comedies of the decade, but it has found a place among my favorite comedies of all time.

1990 was a great time for a group of friends when they graduated. It was on that night that these five friends attempted a pub crawl consisting of twelve pubs, but never made it to the end. Now, everyone has grown up, married, had families, and done something with their lives...except for one friend, Gary King, who remains a perpetual teenager.

More than twenty years later, Gary wants to have a second shot at the pub crawl and finish what they started. So, Gary tracks down his four friends, and whether through pity, guilt-tripping (He tells one friend that his mother died), or fast-talking them, he manages to get all four of them to agree to reunite and give a shot at the pub crawl, though none of them actually want to do it.

Things immediately become sour when his friends start to see how Gary seems trapped in a 1990 time warp, as he still has the same car from back then, listens to the same music, and overall does the same things he did as a teenager. It becomes a sad and disheartening sight for the friends when they start to see how their old friend has never grown up.

Things blow up in Gary's face when after an argument, he goes to the bathroom in one of the pubs and leaves his cell phone behind, which makes the friends realize his mother is still alive when he gets a call from her. But, when Gary goes to the bathroom, he gets into a fight with a teenager...who turns out to be a robot.

When his friends go to confront him, they too get caught in a fight with robots and they soon realize that virtually everyone in this town is a robot. But, Gary is hell-bent on finishing the pub crawl despite the fact the robots are catching onto the fact that they're still human and want to turn them into robots.

Now the group must finish the pub crawl, find a way to escape this hell hole of a town, and more importantly, survive the night.

The story manages to be an intriguing blend of comedy, themes about growing up and friendship, falling in love (A sister of one of the friends also gets caught in the chaos), dealing with past issues, robots, and a host of other things. Surprisingly, the film managed to hold itself together without succumbing to tonal shifts. It has action, humor, and it also has moments of surprising and touching dramatic depth as more is revealed about the characters.

The acting, especially from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, is excellent. The actors had chemistry, their comedic timing was pitch perfect, and they also had great dramatic acting skills as well. It's certainly interesting to see such diversity in various acting types that the actors manage to skillfully navigate and achieve. They never felt over the top, overwrought, or boring. They were engaging and made their characters multi-faceted and deep when they needed to.

As a comedy, the film is absolutely hilarious and I was laughing constantly. As a sci-fi thriller, it was also surprisingly interesting, even though it had a number of familiar elements. There's also plenty of action and suspense as the group ventures further into their pub crawl from hell and try to escape the clutches of these robots, while plot twists also keep things interesting and weird.

With an interesting story that successfully blends multiple elements, great acting, hilarious humor, surprisingly good drama, suspense, action, and a number of other things, The World's End is an absolute blast from start to finish. It's definitely an underrated comedy that is better than what people might make you believe. I love it and it is now among my favorite comedies.