THE WORLD'S END

I saw THE WORLD’S END last night. Not to be confused with This is the End or In a World. No, this movie is the new film helmed by Edgar Wright starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost which serves as the capper to Wright’s famous Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy AKA The Cornetto Trilogy for those of you who live across the pond. For those of you who don’t know, The Blood and Ice Cream trilogy is somewhat of a spaghetti western-like series of British films starring Pegg, Frost and several other English actors/comedians as they play normal characters having to deal with real normal human issues the midst of apocalyptic circumstances. The first film was Shaun of the Dead, a film about a man who deals with relationship issues with his friends, parents and girlfriend during zombie invasion, the second was Hot Fuzz, a film about two buddy cops solving an unnaturally high profile crime in the sleepiest of towns, and the final film is The World’s End, a film about 5 old friends who accidently stumble upon an alien robot invasion during a trip to their old home town. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were both good in their own right, both achieving almost a cult-like following and I can tell you today after seeing The World’s End, it’s probably headed in that direction as well.
The whole Cornetto Trilogy has been about taking everything one more step beyond the last film and The World’s End is no different. It definitely has its own feel to it and it differs from Shaun and Fuzz in that it takes its time to build up the comedy but rest assured, all the hallmarks of an Edgar Wright film are there including well written wordplay humor and the same razor sharp ironic wit that made Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead popular. And as the film goes on, and our main characters get more and more inebriated, we see even more outrageous physical comedy and high paced action that rivals that of a John Woo film. The World’s end also deals with decidedly more poignant social issues than the other two films which I think ended up playing pretty well in the mix of things. Overall, I really did like The World’s End even though it does take its sweet time to get rolling. If you liked Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead, this is a MUST SEE but even if you haven’t, you still won’t be disappointed. The World’s end gets a 4…out of 5.