Review of This Is the End (2013) by Clarisesamuels — 15 Jul 2013

This Is the End only holds your interest when this movie is at the beginning. There is a new genre of Hollywood film that seems to have been invented by Seth Rogen--I call it The Gross & the Vulgar (G&V). G&V films use a lot of sexual obscenity and are often obsessed with scatological references. Admittedly, there is not a single display of excrement in this G&V film. However, we see Michael Cera as a weird druggie who humiliates a woman after she performs fellatio in the bathroom at a wild party held by James Franco. Cera is supposed to be playing himself, but it's unclear whether he is in fact that stupid in real life. Franco plays himself as a spoiled rich kid who can afford the house of his fantasies and is the leader of the pack. All of Franco's friends including Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel and others are successful actors who are playing themselves. When they poke fun at their own fame, wealth, and lifestyle, there is some measure of amusement, but this aspect of the film only holds for the first half hour or so. There is an amusing conversation about what it means to be on a gluten-free diet, as Baruchel and Rogen act dumber than they presumably are in real life: “Everything that's bad has gluten...calories have gluten.”.

However, the movie soon deteriorates into a disaster film, but the disaster is being caused by God Himself who has decided to usher in the Day of Judgment. Los Angeles is now right in there with Sodom and Gomorrah, and given the party that was being held at Franco's house when the hell-fires broke loose, one can understand why the Lord finally got fed up with the human race. The Devil himself has taken over the city, and he is a giant demon with an equally giant phallus. Those who are pure and good are spared this scenario, for a blue light beams them up like a suction tube so that they can reside in a heavenly abode. Those left behind are sinners who have yet to redeem themselves, but they too can get beamed up at the last possible moment if they sacrifice themselves for the sake of love and kindness.

There are painful scenes in this movie--Franco and Danny McBride have an obscenely juvenile conversation about whose masturbatory practices and seminal output are more prodigious. At one point, as the clan holes up in Franco's mansion, which acts as a crucible for the ensemble as the populace burns to death outdoors, a stranger sticks his head through a hole in the door and begs the boys to take him in. The group debates the matter for too long, for the Devil sees the poor shlemiel with his head stuck in the door and decapitates him, so that the head rolls into Franco's house. The boys don't quite know what to do with the bloody body part, so naturally they end up kicking it around in an impromptu game of soccer ball before they decide that this behavior is insensitive, tasteless, and inappropriate. Given the nature of the entire film, this display of remorse is a little out of character.

Unfortunately, in the end, This Is the End, another G&V film from Seth Rogen, is simply asinine, half-witted, and puerile.