Now playing at a theater near you:
THE WORLD'S END (Dir. Edgar Wright, 2013)
The
third installment in Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy is
finally here and it's fuckin' fantastic!
For those who don't know, the
series, which includes the 2004 zombie rom com SHAWN OF THE DEAD, and
the 2007 action movie satire HOT FUZZ is called such because of a
connection to the Cornetto ice cream brand that appears in each film.
At
first glance, this new entry may look a lot like a British version of
this summer's THIS IS THE END, the raunchy apocalyptic Seth Rogen and
Evan Goldberg comedy.
But here, the cast, made
up of Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Constadine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie
Marsan, aren't playing themselves (that is, exaggerated caricatures of
their personas), and the backdrop isn't that of Biblical rapture; it's
an alien invasion that the blokes uncover while on a pub crawl in their
home town of Newton Haven, England.
Pegg,
as a 40something n'er-do-well alcoholic who never grew up (he still
wears the same Sisters of Mercy t-shirt and black trenchcoat he wore as a
teenager), rounds up his old gang to again attempt the “Gold Mile” crawl
of 12 pubs that they never completed two decades ago.
Pegg's former
pals have all moved on into responsible adulthood and roll their eyes at
the idea, yet they still join in, mainly because Pegg plays the
sympathy card of his mother's recent passing.
Many
pints are consumed by the group, except by the teetotaling Frost who
orders water to Pegg's chagrin (“A man of your legendary prowess
drinking fucking rain! It's like a lion eating Hummus.”), as they make
their way from pub to pub, but they find that Thomas Wolfe was right
about not being able to go home again.
Pub culture has been devoured by
chains making the establishments all look alike, the aging bartenders don't
recognize “the return of the prodigal sons” (as Pegg puts it), and, oh
yeah, it appears that many of the townfolk have been replaced with
robots.
Another
similarity to THIS IS THE END is that THE WORLD'S END (the title comes
from the name of the last pub on the crawl) is crammed with killer
comedy.
Ultra comical fight scenes, rapid fire one-liners, and sight
gags all hit their marks, while the characters' individual dilemmas -
Constadine pines for Freeman's sister Rosamund Pike, Frost reveals his
wife has left him, Marsan deals with running into a former schoolmate
who bullied him, while Pegg is only concerned with partying (no matter
what danger surrounds the fellows, Pegg's always pouring himself another
pint) - don't get short shrift in the mist of all the silly
sci-fi-tinged chaos.
The second in the trilogy, HOT FUZZ, had a juicy extended cameo by former 007 Timothy Dalton, but this tops it by having a better known Bond on hand: Pierce Brosnan as the band of blokes' former professor.
I
love how the film never let ups or drags. Director Wright and lead
protagonist Pegg, who co-wrote the screenplay as they did for SHAWN and
HOT FUZZ, provide an infectious energy, which the rest of the ensemble
is entirely up to the task of. It had everything I wanted from it: tons
of solid laughs, likable relatable characters, and satisfying story
beats all wrapped up together in a package that's as witty as it is
rowdy.
THE
WORLD'S END is a fitting, funny as Hell, end to a what will surely come
to be known as a classic comedy trilogy. A pint and a cone of Cornetto
ice cream would be ideal to consume while viewing it for sure, but the
movie is incredibly filling all by itself.
More later...
