The World's End

OK its now finally December, the last month of the year and with only four weeks left of the year, I thought its time do another post.  And this one will be on the sci-fi comedy World's End, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.  So with that let's give this one a look...

The film starts with its main characer, Gary King (Simon Pegg) an alcoholic, who reminisces of the days of his youth when he tried to do a pub crawl with his mates in his home town of Newton Haven 20 years ago.  The pub crawl consisted of visiting all 12 pubs in the area, however Gary failed to complete the crawl and now he wants to get back in touch with his old friends to complete the quest.  Gary eventually persuades his old friends to meet up and do the crawl, which consist of Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), Oliver "O-Man" Chamberlain (Martin Freeman) and Peter Page (Eddie Marsan).  However as they all arrive in Newton Haven all is not what it seems as after a few pubs, Gary get's into a fight with a teenager, who is surprisingly strong, but Gary knocks his head off to reveal that the teenager is a robot.  Gary friends soon join him in the toilet as more robots arrive they fight them off and afterwards decide to carry on with the crawl to avoid suspicion. 

On the way Gary also bumps into Sam (Rosamund Pike), Oliver's sister, who Gary and Steven have rival affections for.  Gary warns Sam to leave town who is at first sceptical until her two friends are revealed to be robots, whom Gary destroys.  As the pub crawl progresses they go to a pub where they meet with one of their former teachers, Guy Shepherd (Pierce Brosnan) who turns out to be a robot, who tells them to accept their fate and let themselves be robotised.  However Gary soon notices that Oliver's birthmark on his head is no longer there and he crushes his head, revealing him to be a robot, after which a big fight ensues, and Gary and the others scatter, and he persuades Sam to leave town, who drives off in her car.  And from here its all down to Gary to try and fight off the robot invasion and save the town, himself and his friends.

As a part of what is now called the Three Flavour Cornetto trilogy (along with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), The World's End is quite an entertaining film but it isn't quite in the same league as Edgar Wright's first two films.  The idea of the World's End is actually a good one, and while robot invasions are nothing new, Pegg, Frost and Wright all do a good job in putting it on the big screen.  And the film also has a rather poignant ending with a surprise twist which I won't give away which is worth watching for.  Wright also again uses the theme of the "locals" as being quite sinister, as he did so well with Shaun of the dead and Hot Fuzz, where in a small town not everything is as it seems.

So as for the performances they are all pretty good, with Simon Pegg doing a fine job as the self centred, egomaniac drunkard, Gary King, who is determined to complete his pub crawl, but instead has to fight for his life and humanity instead.  Pegg get's some funny lines of dialogue, one of my favourites of which is when he berates the alien Network, who controls the robots, near the end of the film by saying "Get back in your rocket, and fuck off back to Legoland you c****!!".  Also another is when he sits in the first pub shocked at his friend, Andy, who is teetotal and he orders a glass of water, leaving Gary outraged saying "A man of your legendary prowess drinking fucking rain!  Its like a lion eating homous!".  Also a scene where he responds to Oliver's annoying habit of abbreviating "what the fuck" to WTF and Gary angrily asks "What the fuck does WTF mean???!".

Nick Frost is also really good as Gary's best friend, Andy, who was once a big drinker as a youth, but is now a buttoned down accountant, until he get's caught up in the robot invasion, and as he starts fighting its not long before he starts to drink shots!  Frost has some good dialogue as well and one which springs to mind is when he speaks out to the Network (voiced by Bill Nighy) as he defends Gary saying "Hey who put you in charge? Hey who are you to criticise anyone? Now, you may think Gary is a bit of a cock, and he is a bit of a cock, but he's my cock!".  Martin Freeman is also really good in his role as the suave Oliver, a yuppie estate agent, who eventually ends up getting taken over by the robots and he spends the second half of the film without most of his head!  And not to give too much away but at the end of the film we see the robotic Oliver give a couple a tour of a dilapidated house, and he has a used football with a couple of eyeholes cut out to substitute for his cracked head!   

Paddy Considine is slightly sidelined in his role as Steven Prince, but being the excellent actor that he is, he does a fine job with the role, as one of the Gary's friends who comes along for the crawl and ends up having to fight the robots.  Paddy isn't given his lion share of the funny lines, but one I liked was after they fight the first robots, Steve says "Ten people have entered this toilet in the last five minutes and not a single on has come back out again.  That's going to look suspicious" after which Gary crudely says "Gay love!".  Eddie Marsan is also pretty good in his role as the cowardly Peter Page who was the victim of bullying when growing up and he ends up hiding under the tables during the fight scenes against the robots.  Rosamund Pike is also good as Sam, whom Gary once had a quick encounter with years ago in the disabled toilets of one of the pubs on the crawl, and he tries to proposition her and she slaps him.  But later on as she leaves town Gary stays "we'll always have disableds".  And finally Pierce Brosnan provides an amusing brief role as a school teacher who has been taken over by the robots, although admittedly Brosnan's contribution is no where near as good as Timothy Dalton's in Hot Fuzz, but then again it is a much smaller role.

So moving onto Edgar Wright and his direction as he does a fine job here with the fast paced action sequences as well as the build up of Gary and his friends heading to the town.  Wright also pays homage to Invasion of the body snatches with this one, as the robots can copy the human DNA with physical contact, as we see in the scene where the two seductive girls dance and kiss Gary and Andy.  Wright also adds in a neat reference to the cornettos, as toward the end Andy looks out and sees a Cornetto wrapper flap in the wind right past him!  The film also has a good soundtrack which includes a lot of 80s, 90s tracks such as Primal Scream's "Loaded, Happy Mondays "Step on", Blur's "There's no other way" and of course The Stone Roses "Fool's gold".

So does The World's End have any glaring flaws????  Well not glaring exactly, but its not exactly perfect either.  For starters character wise Gary is a bit of a dick, who's over enthusiastic, immature and egomaniacal personality can grate on your nerves, but as the film later progresses he slowly becomes a bit more bearable.  The film also has some characters which are sidelined such as Pierce Brosnan's and even Paddy Considine kind of takes a back seat next to Pegg and Frost as they are always at the forefront here.  I also felt the film's ending while I quite liked the post apocalyptic setting (which I won't go into, promise!) I felt that Gary's transformation into a "king" so to speak was a bit out of the blue and leaves you going "What??!".  Also when Gary effectively defeats the Network by pissing it off and it decides to leave the planet, it seems a bit of a copout way for him to defeat the robot invasion, but then it doesn't have to be too logical since its a comedy after all.

Soooo that's it for The World's End, which is an enjoyable follow up after Hot Fuzz, and Wright redeems himself here after the annoying and distracting comic book film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim.  And while its not quite as funny as its predecessors its still worth checking out.

And I shall leave yee there.