Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, Pierce Brosnan
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Synopsis: Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind’s only hope for survival.
This film has received mixed reviews, more than likely because the previous two films in the trilogy were so fantastic. It was always going to be a tall order to live up to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End doesn’t quite do it, but I still found some worth in the film.
A lot of people’s criticism’s seem to centre on Simon Pegg playing a thoroughly unlikeable character, which is at odds to his normal choices, and also means that he and Nick Frost don’t get to banter as much. I didn’t mind this too much, I thought Pegg’s character Gary King was so obnoxious and oblivious that he was kind of funny, you almost had to pity him. It was good to see the roles reversed for once.
The opening thirty minutes of the pub crawl, where the old friends were getting to know each other again, and getting hacked off with Gary’s wide eyed enthusiasm for drinking were fantastic I thought. I laughed numerous times. Then the central concept hit, and the film turned into an all action sci fi romp, very similar in tone to Shaun and Hot Fuzz, but not carried off with quite the same panache in my view. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, still had a few laughs and was fairly engaged up until last orders as it were, but the fighting with blue blooded robots did get a bit repetitive after a while.
To summarise, I thought the acting was good, the comedy was up my street and the action was well choreographed. On the negative side, the film itself isn’t up to the standard of it’s trilogy mates, the action got slightly repetitive after a while and the ending could have done with a bit of an edit, but otherwise I enjoyed this movie. For the record my wife, who also likes Shaun and Hot Fuzz, hated The World’s End. So definitely a marmite film.
MOVIES & MUSIC CAFE 
Anything with the Nick Frost/Simon Pegg combination is going to get me watching!
Have you seen it? I liked it because I agree with you, but I can see why people would have been disappointed if they were comparing it to their previous work.
No, I’ve not seen it. But thanks to you it’s on the list!
awesome! Now do yourself a favour and go watch Gravity in IMAX 3d as it’s the best film I have seen in years and years!!!
Little old Adelaide doesn’t have an IMAX. We did, years ago, but it closed down. Guess it didn’t make enough with our small population.
I’ll just have to settle for normal 3D
3D will do, it’s a film that needs to be seen in that format for sure!
Enjoy 😊
agreed. it’s not up to Wright’s previous 2, especially Shaun Of The Dead, but it’s still a fun hour and a half 🙂
Yeah, it’s a tough ask to match up to the other two films. I actually really liked the first half of the film when they were on the pub crawl, more so than when they discovered the robots!