The World's End - Movie Review

"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."

If you've seen the entry from my blog of my most anticipated films of 2013, you'll know this one was right up there with them. If you haven't, then let me tell you now that I'm a huge fan of these guys. Not only their work together from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz but projects that they have worked on without one another. To say I was excited for The World's End would be a sheer understatement, the closure to the infamous Cornetto trilogy was finally here and I couldn't be more pumped. After seeing it there must be many questions people are wondering; was it as good as I expected? Does it live up to a fitting "finale"? Was it as funny as the other films we've gotten from these people? Find out.

So The World's End follows five guys who return to their hometown after distancing from each other after a failed attempt of completing a famous pub crawl in which they must make their way to twelve different pubs before the night ends. I will start out with the plot and will say that it's pretty simple. What you see is what you get to be honest. If you've seen the trailers then you know exactly what to expect and there won't be anything in there that will shock you in terms of where the story is heading because you'll know exactly what this film will follow. Did I have a problem with this story? No not particularly. Right from when I first saw the trailer I thought it sounded like it could make for a pretty solid film and a fitting end to this trilogy of films that the trio had given us. However I will mention that a massive problem I had with the film and the route that it took in its third act was that I felt it became too much orientated towards the story and the comedy was then well and truly pushed aside. This is the first time that I have felt in any of these films that Edgar, Simon or Nick have created that this was the case and it was a huge factor in my disappointment with the film overall. I guess I could say that this was the clearest of the points in which this happened but I would say it's quite a regular occurrence in The World's End. It gets caught up with the several genres that it tries to balance which I would say more so lies within the writing and directing. Unlike the other two films where the humour flowed naturally and came from the central plot, this wasn't the case here. I have narrowed it down to a couple of things, one being the much higher budget this film had. I'm not particularly sure what the costs for both SOTD and Hot Fuzz were but I know this was almost double, if not more, of what Hot Fuzz cost. That is of course expected with a sci-fi film but this felt like much more explanation and depth was needed to be explained/shown. This meant that the comedy was frozen out in my opinion and made for a much less funnier film than was expected and hoped. Another was that it was on a much grander scale which meant that it was always going to be more action based than previous installments. I expected it to counter balance the comedy with or at least within these action scenes but for the most part it wasn't done.

Now Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg once again teamed up to write the script for their newest flick. I can't quite put my finger on it, maybe it was the fact that these people have been away for much longer than the gap between SOTD and HF but something didn't quite seem the same. The writing wasn't as quirky, sassy or clever as the previous two films, at least not for me anyway. There was so many times where after a joke or line was delivered, I felt like giving myself a good ol' facepalm. Too many times did jokes not only with myself, but friends and the rest of the cinema fail to deliver that I believe I'm not the only one in saying The World's End was nowhere near as funny as it's to predecessors within the 'Cornetto trilogy'. Maybe it is because they have become much more popular over the years and working on other projects in the longer absence has given them more influences or a different way of approaching films that had changed which meant they carried out the creation of The World's End differently than before. This was how I felt walking out of the film anyway, the solid and silky smooth writing that the previous two films had was just not there for me. Another thing I will mention in regards to the writing was the winks and nods to ongoing jokes from this 'mini series' of films that the trio have given us. Again this could just be me but I couldn't help but not really find them funny or relevant for the most part. I can think of one or two that fit in quite nicely and I appreciated but the rest just seemed like they got to a stage where they were shoe horning them in just for the sake of it and it didn't feel natural to what was going on in this particular story/universe.

Onto something a little more positive was the action sequences that the film contained. I will get out of the way firsthand a minor problem that drew me out a couple of times while watching them was that they came across a little obviously choreographed. That is the key to creating a great looking fight scene, having the ability to hide or cover up the fights being choreographed. I think as the film progressed and the filmmakers more than likely became much more confident with what they were doing, I either didn't notice or they did a great job of covering it up. Put that little problem aside and there was some fascinating stuff to behold! A really great job by everyone involved with these scenes whether it be the stunt doubles, choreographers, director, actors involved etc because they made for some entertaining, almost mind-blowing stuff at times. I was seriously impressed with the job that they did on this particular aspect of the film and was completely engaged every time a battle or action scene ensued. There was plenty of things that I'd never seen in a fight or action scene before and plenty of moments where I was in complete awe of what was going on and I can say Pacific Rim is the only other film to give me these experiences too so credit is certainly due in this department.

Another thing that overly impressed me was the amount of cameos that the film contained. I was in shock while watching with the amount of actors that I both noticed from previous work the guys had done whether it be Spaced, SOTD or HF or just Hollywood names that we've grown to love over the years being included. I won't spoil any because it is a great experience sitting back, watching the film and being genuinely surprised by the actors and actresses you are seeing on screen. This leads me into the main cast of the film and the performances that they delivered. I won't go overly into detail about each and every member of the cast but I will say overall I thought everyone did a good job. Now here's a problem that took me out of the film and hindered my enjoyment yet again which was Gary King, the protagonist of the film. I know that he was supposed to be stubborn, obnoxious, extremely annoying and unlikable; it was the whole point of his character. But it didn't make for good viewing for most of the film, it was just extremely uncomfortable and excessively irritating to watch an unfunny, and pretty bland character lead the line of such a talented array of actors. Don't get me wrong, I love Simon Pegg and I thought he did a great job portraying the character but Gary King just wasn't for me, not one bit.

Just a quick mention about the special effects that the film used, which I thought weren't half bad. Now this is a borderline £40 million budgeted film, which being a sci-fi movie was of course going to somewhat heavily rely on the use of special effects. We saw a substantial amount in the trailer and from the synopsis alone were to expect this department to be included a great deal. For the part that they had to play, I didn't have a problem. I know a few people who did, saying that they were too cheap looking and didn't really fit in but I feel that this was the whole desired effect of having it in there.

The last little thing that I will mention before giving my verdict for the film is another little piece of praise I have for the film and that is the editing. Not many films do I take massive notice of the editing because it is there to piece together the film, present a clear and free flowing story to the audience and determine the pacing of the film. In an Edgar Wright film, especially one from Wright, Pegg and Frost it is much more than that. The quirky, fast paced, quick cutting, juxtaposed, hip hop montage editing that is included is an absolute joy to watch. It does make for a much more entertaining film as it brings back great memories from the earlier work of the three. As well as this, it does help set certain scenes or moments of the film as well as cutting down unnecessary time spent on things that at least need to be shown for the audience to understand what is taking place. Huge praise to this department once again as this was something that I felt was definitely kept onto from the previous two films despite feeling that some things were lacking from this 'finale'.

Overall, I don't think there is a great deal to say about The World's End despite my disappointment with it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying the talents that this trio possesses or how well made the film is. I merely feel it wasn't anywhere near as funny as I was expecting the film to be or as funny as it should be judging from the filmmakers involved, the story it was following etc. You might get the feeling that I didn't like the film, I did. What I'm saying is that it just sadly didn't live up to the expectations that I was hoping it would. Was it ever going to? Who knows. I've been waiting for this film for many years now and was expecting it to deliver a great deal. I just feel the longer absence and branching off from projects together may have had more of an effect on the final product of The World's End than people will think.