Film: The World's End

GENRE: Sci-Fi Action Comedy
RATING: 14A for language and sexual references
RUNTIME: 1 hour and 49 minutes
STARRING: Simon Pegg (Star Trek, Mission Impossible 3 & 4)
Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz); Martin Freeman (Sherlock, The Hobbit)
DIRECTOR: Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs The World)
WRITERS: Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead)
PLOT: Five friends reunited to attempt an epic pub crawl but the apocalypse is approaching.

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:
1 This is my least favourite of Wright’s ‘Cornetto’ trilogy. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and far better films than this one. The previous two have better genre parodies and much more laughs. The World’s End is pretty weak on all accounts.
2 I’m sorry but I can’t go along with Simon Pegg as a ‘cool’ loner. Even in Hot Fuzz, while he might have been an awesome cop, he was at least nerdy in his straight-laced-ness. I just didn’t buy Pegg’s character in this film.
3 Nick Frost has been utterly hilarious in the previous films, he was so happy and shlubby you couldn’t help but root for him. In this one, he’s angry and not as fun. I guess one of my main issues with this film is that I didn’t find myself caring too much what happened to these characters.
4 After watching him play a retired boxer suffering from Parkinson’s on Ray Donovan, it was fun to see Eddie Marsan in a completely different role.
5 I did appreciate the tie-ins to the other two films. The reoccurrence of the Cornetto ice cream, the jumping of fences and the similar situation of being in a town surrounded by an evil element. I just wished this last installment was far better.

RECOMMENDATION: Maybe TBS for the curious
UPCOMING REVIEWS: Fall Film Preview, Fall TV Preview, Emmys