The World's End

Cast of Characters:

Gary King - Simon Pegg

Andy Knightley - Nick Frost

Steven Prince - Paddy Considine

Oliver Chamberlain - Martin Freeman

Peter Page - Eddie Marsan

Sam Chamberlain - Rosamund Pike

Director - Edgar Wright

Screenplay - Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright

Rated R for pervasive language including sexual references

      Co-writer/star Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and co-writer/director Edgar Wright partner up once again and go bottoms up in the much anticipated third installment of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, The World's End. As Gary King would say, "Let's do this!!"

      Gary King (Simon Pegg) is a hedonistic alcoholic who dreams of completing the Golden Mile, an infamous pub crawl that winds through twelve pubs in their hometown of Newton Haven, with his lifelong friends. Years before, they attempted the crawl, but ultimately failed to reach the final pub, the World's End. Now all grown up, Gary tries to get his four friends - Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman) and Peter Page (Eddie Marsan) - to brave through the crawl once more. Having grown older with steady careers and families, the four have moved on from that point in their lives, and see Gary as just trying to live in the past with no intention of amounting to anything else. Reluctantly, though, they all give in and join Gary on the legendary pub crawl.

      While journeying through the crawl, Gary winds up in a bathroom fight with a local teenager who turns out to be inhumanly strong and agile. Gary accidentally beheads him and, to his surprise, finds out that this boy appears to be some sort of robot. When his friends find out what is going on, they don't know what to make of it, and certainly don't know how many more there are. Unsure of who else may be a robot in disguise, the five agree to continue on with the rest of the crawl in order to not draw any attention. Will they be successful though?

       Since Shaun of the Dead, Pegg, Frost and Wright together have been a comic force to be reckoned with. When it comes to the Brits, America just can't beat them in terms of witty humor in comedy. Knowing how great Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were, The World's End has a lot to live up to. I'm happy to say it doesn't disappoint. Like it's predecessors, the plot is fairly straightforward and simple, which is to the film's benefit. Even when the robots' intentions are revealed, it never really gets bogged down in the details. The strength in this film ultimately lies in the characters and that trademark witty dialogue by Pegg and Wright. This isn't quite about a robot invasion much like Shaun of the Dead wasn't quite about a zombie apocalypse. This is about five guys stumbling their way through twelve pints of alcohol on a rather arduous pub crawl when they happen to wind up in the midst of an invasion. The invasion never takes center stage. The five guys do, and that's where the humor lies. It's in Gary still trying to chug his pint down while sucker punching robots in the face. It's in Gary warning Sam (who thinks he's just trying to get into her pants once again) about the robots, but first stopping himself to find out if she still wants to have sex, and it's in Gary, Andy, Steven and Peter desperately proving to each other they're still real and not robots in hilarious fashion. That scene in particular was, in a way, a slight nod to the great blood test scene from John Carpenter's The Thing. On top of that, the character "switch" between Pegg and Frost, where before it was Pegg playing the straitlaced one and Frost playing the goofball slacker was a good move, in my opinion. Given the type of film this is, Wright's directing style fits right at home here, and he manages to string together quite a few cleverly choreographed fight sequences (although the Shaun of the Dead zombie fight choreographed to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" still remains my favorite), where each of the six key characters get their own moment to shine (particularly Frost). Overall, as we've seen in the first two films, there is a layer of heart at the center of the movie as we see the strained friendship between Gary and Andy develop. Gary seems like he just wants to have fun, but as the movie progresses you begin to see that it may just be to cover up his inner sadness as he sees that his friends have moved on with fulfilling lives and he's still stuck in his aimless life going nowhere. Andy may himself seem always annoyed by Gary's antics, but it's never out of hate, but more out of one just wanting something better for his friend.

      Although the final scenes seem to be a little bit more conventional than what we've seen from these three before, this is still one hell of a laugh riot, and may be Simon Pegg's best performance out of the trilogy. The dialogue is sharp and witty. The main performers really click together, and there are also two terrific cameos from Pierce Brosnan and Bill Nighy in a hysterical voice-over role (which leads to a funny conclusion from him I did not expect to hear). If you haven't seen the first two films, don't worry. While I highly recommend you do anyway, this film stands alone as its own film, so the material won't go over your head or leave you feeling left out. It may not be their best effort, but if Paul proved anything it's that Edgar Wright couldn't have been more missed. Seeing these three back together was time well worth spent. I give The World's End an A- (★★★½).