I'm always nervous going into a movie labeled as a comedy. Recently I've found myself not laughing at movies that are marketed as funny. Walking out this time, I felt refreshed. Although the movie isn't purely a comedy, it's more of a Dr.Who styled adventure with a good amount of humor thrown in.
The movie tells a tale of a group of friends growing apart after high school and coming back together decades later for a drunken run to all the bars from their hometown. Simon Pegg's character is a self proclaimed free spirit who does what he wants when he wants to, but lives in past glory. Throughout the movie his character grows up, but still has his free spirit aspect about him. Nick Frost plays the part of best friend but is an uptight corporate drone, as is the rest of the cast. It's interesting to see Simon Pegg and Nick Frost swap roles of the almost unlikable slacker and the well off, uptight, but reasonable character. All the characters are interesting in their own light, feel different from each other, and have natural chemistry between them.
The movie tells a tale of a group of friends growing apart after high school and coming back together decades later for a drunken run to all the bars from their hometown. Simon Pegg's character is a self proclaimed free spirit who does what he wants when he wants to, but lives in past glory. Throughout the movie his character grows up, but still has his free spirit aspect about him. Nick Frost plays the part of best friend but is an uptight corporate drone, as is the rest of the cast. It's interesting to see Simon Pegg and Nick Frost swap roles of the almost unlikable slacker and the well off, uptight, but reasonable character. All the characters are interesting in their own light, feel different from each other, and have natural chemistry between them.
Visually the movie stands up well against classics like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. The visual effects, however, are alright at best. Robot heads exploding open with blue goop looks particularly cheesy, but it sort of fits the movie's overall style. The pacing and soundtrack fit well; as soon as you get the feeling that you're getting tired of the montages the movie puts a halt to them and plays out some dialogue or throws an action scene into the mix. The action is nice, isn't anything too fancy, but in the end still insanely entertaining to watch.
*Spoilers*
The way that the story progresses is so odd, and even though I personally I didn't like the ending, I'm glad that this group of people didn't mind going off the normal path and coming up with something unexpected. What I thought was going to happen was there was going to be an epic concluding battle, the town is set free, and everyone goes home happy. Instead what you get is the movie's main villain literally saying "Fuck it" flying off back into space and the world as we know it ending and becoming a post apocalyptic waste because of it. Some characters even end up dead, turned into fertilizer, and there is no mourning phase at all for them and it makes it that much more hilarious.
*End Spoilers*
*Spoilers*
The way that the story progresses is so odd, and even though I personally I didn't like the ending, I'm glad that this group of people didn't mind going off the normal path and coming up with something unexpected. What I thought was going to happen was there was going to be an epic concluding battle, the town is set free, and everyone goes home happy. Instead what you get is the movie's main villain literally saying "Fuck it" flying off back into space and the world as we know it ending and becoming a post apocalyptic waste because of it. Some characters even end up dead, turned into fertilizer, and there is no mourning phase at all for them and it makes it that much more hilarious.
*End Spoilers*
The World's End, although a somewhat flawed movie, is still one of the most entertaining and most refreshing movies I've seen all year. If you haven't seen it yet, I would recommend it to you. Even if you don't like it, you could still tell that the makers of this film had heart, which is more than you can say for a lot of people in film today.
8/10
- Good Characters, except maybe Gary
- Greatly Entertaining
- Cheesy effects and fighting