Not only is The Worlds End an absolutely hilarious movie, but its also got something ninety-percent of comedies (heck, most movies) don’t bother to include: characters you care about.
Twenty years ago, a group of friends attempted an “epic” pub crawl. Their goal was to drink 12 pints in 12 separate pubs. My kinds of guys! Their final destination: The Worlds End, a famous pub that is just on the edge of town. One by one though, they all succumb to their drunken debauchery.
Cut to today and Gary King (Simon Pegg), the leader of that old gang, is a man stuck in his glory years; same car, same clothes, same hairstyle and same music. We all know guys like this, right?
King becomes convinced that he needs to get the band back together and do the marathon again. This is where his life went off the rails, so if he actually finishes it this time, things are sure to change.
After much wrangling, the friends (Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan) reluctantly agree to join him and the fun begins. OK, not really. Because in between all the drinking and arguing, they slowly begin to realize that their home town has been taken over by… robots.
Directed by Edgar Wright and co-written by both Wright and Pegg, The Worlds End is a perfect cure for these summertime movie blues. The film takes its time (a good hour) to get to the sci-fi element and because of that, we’ve already grown to like and know these guys. Most films would have had the robots start wreaking havoc 10 or 20 minutes in and we as an audience would forced to listen to the usual catch-phrase or quip, not caring anything at all about any of the main characters. Not here. We like these guys. We know why they have their differences with each other. We care about their lives and well-being and we care about their friendships.
On top of this? We get some great fight scenes. Who would have thought a group of 40-year old pudgy guys could take on a city of robots?
The cast work well together and yeah, it does seem like they’ve know each other forever. Pegg’s character could have easily crossed the line to annoying but he doesn’t get anywhere near that said line. You feel for the guy, even when he’s lying to himself and the gang. You know why he’s doing it and you’re still routing for him. Frost as always is funny and it’s a treat not having him in his usual bumbling-joe mode.
Do yourself a favor and go see this. You’ll absolutely enjoy it. We need more films like this that don’t talk down to the audience with been-there-done-that jokes about getting kicked in the balls. Don’t let the dummies who made Grown Ups 2 a hit win!
