“The World’s End” exists somewhere at the intersection of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Westworld,” “The Big Chill” and “Withnail and I,” but it’s not a geographical location. The new film from the makers of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” is about a state of arrested development, populated by a guy who never grew up, his friends who have and… robots.
Gary King (Simon Pegg) can pinpoint the best night of his life. Hours after graduating school he and four friends attempted the Golden Mile pub-crawl—one mile, twelve pubs—in the quiet British town of Newton Haven. It was an epic night for the teenager, filled with pints, pals and even a bit of illicit bathroom snogging, even if he fell three short of the final pub on the list, The World’s End.
In the twenty years since his life has been a flatline. “I’m the same old Gary,” he says, and that’s the problem. His old buddy Oliver (Martin Freeman) is a successful real estate agent, Peter (Eddie Marsan) sells luxury cars, Steven (Paddy Considine) started and sold a thriving business and former best friend Andrew (Nick Frost) is an attorney. Gary hits upon the idea of putting the band back together, so to speak, and relive the good old days. Or as he remembers them, “The camaraderie, the fights, the hangovers so fierce it feels like your head is full of ants.”
The pub-crawl becomes less about nostalgia and more about survival when the townsfolk of Newton Haven are revealed to be automatons enlisting new recruits for their cause. As the friends—now including Oliver’s sister Samantha (Rosamund Pike)—battle the mysterious creatures Gary remains focused. It’ll tale more than DNA thieving robots to stop him from completing his childhood dream.
Like the other films in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy—“Shaun of the Dead,” Hot Fuzz” and this movie—“The World’s End” is a memorable mix of characters and situation.
Once again Cornetto regulars Pegg and Frost are front and center, although playing against type. Pegg’s take on Gary has much more swagger than we’ve seen from him in the past. He’s a selfish motor mouth, concerned only with his redemption and the completion of the Golden Mile challenge. He’s a living embodiment of the dangers of living in the past but Pegg somehow makes him bearable and very funny. He spouts the complicated dialogue effortlessly, and check out the balancing act as he battles aliens and tries not to spill his pint.
Frost plays it straight for the most part, playing a straight-and-narrow attorney who (MILD SPOILER) goes off the rails when the alien takeover plot is unveiled. His deadpan delivery in the first half pays off with big scene stealing laughs in the second half when he lets loose.
“The World’s End” isn’t as consistently laugh-out-loud funny as “Shaun of the Dead” or as action-packed as “Hot Fuzz,” but its thematic core—the difficulty of growing up—is evident in every frame, making it the most mature of the Cornetto films.
“The World’s End” exists somewhere at the intersection of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Westworld,” “The Big Chill” and “Withnail and I,” but it’s not a geographical location. The new film from the makers of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” is about a state of arrested development, populated by a guy who never grew up, his friends who have and… robots.
Gary King (Simon Pegg) can pinpoint the best night of his life. Hours after graduating school he and four friends attempted the Golden Mile pub-crawl—one mile, twelve pubs—in the quiet British town of Newton Haven. It was an epic night for the teenager, filled with pints, pals and even a bit of illicit bathroom snogging, even if he fell three short of the final pub on the list, The World’s End.
In the twenty years since his life has been a flatline. “I’m the same old Gary,” he says, and that’s the problem. His old buddy Oliver (Martin Freeman) is a successful real estate agent, Peter (Eddie Marsan) sells luxury cars, Steven (Paddy Considine) started and sold a thriving business and former best friend Andrew (Nick Frost) is an attorney. Gary hits upon the idea of putting the band back together, so to speak, and relive the good old days. Or as he remembers them, “The camaraderie, the fights, the hangovers so fierce it feels like your head is full of ants.”
The pub-crawl becomes less about nostalgia and more about survival when the townsfolk of Newton Haven are revealed to be automatons enlisting new recruits for their cause. As the friends—now including Oliver’s sister Samantha (Rosamund Pike)—battle the mysterious creatures Gary remains focused. It’ll tale more than DNA thieving robots to stop him from completing his childhood dream.
Like the other films in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy—“Shaun of the Dead,” Hot Fuzz” and this movie—“The World’s End” is a memorable mix of characters and situation.
Once again Cornetto regulars Pegg and Frost are front and center, although playing against type. Pegg’s take on Gary has much more swagger than we’ve seen from him in the past. He’s a selfish motor mouth, concerned only with his redemption and the completion of the Golden Mile challenge. He’s a living embodiment of the dangers of living in the past but Pegg somehow makes him bearable and very funny. He spouts the complicated dialogue effortlessly, and check out the balancing act as he battles aliens and tries not to spill his pint.
Frost plays it straight for the most part, playing a straight-and-narrow attorney who (MILD SPOILER) goes off the rails when the alien takeover plot is unveiled. His deadpan delivery in the first half pays off with big scene stealing laughs in the second half when he lets loose.
“The World’s End” isn’t as consistently laugh-out-loud funny as “Shaun of the Dead” or as action-packed as “Hot Fuzz,” but its thematic core—the difficulty of growing up—is evident in every frame, making it the most mature of the Cornetto films.
This weekend as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost embark on an epic pub crawl in The World’s End, they are continuing a Hollywood tradition of raising a glass in the movies.
“Tonight, we will be partaking of a liquid,” says Gary King (Pegg), “although we may return with a twinkle in our eyes, we will be in truth blind… drunk.”
Pegg and pals add a sci fi twist to their story, but at its heart it’s a boozy comedy.
W.C. Fields pioneered drinking on film. During his 1930s heyday he made a name for himself with snappy one-liners like, “A woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.”
He liked a cocktail off screen as well. On set he had an ever-present vacuum flask of mixed martinis he referred to as his “pineapple juice.” While shooting a movie in 1942 a jokester replaced his gin with real pineapple juice. After his first sip Fields shrieked, “Who put pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?”
My Favorite Year, the 1982 Peter O’Toole comedy, was a fictional story based on a real life actor with a legendary taste for alcohol. O’Toole, a hellraiser who once went for a drink in Paris and woke up in Corsica days later, plays a character based on Errol Flynn’s appearance on Sid Caesar’s television program Your Show of Shows. Premiere Magazine ranked the performance number 56 on their 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time list.
More recently Beerfest celebrated ale quaffing in a story based on the von Wolfhausen family tradition of spreading relatives’ ashes on the official ground of the Munich Oktoberfest.
This down and dirty ode to drinking beer stars the members of Broken Lizard—the comedy troupe that gave us Super Troopers and Club Dread—and only has a 41% rating at Rotten Tomatoes but is worth a look if only to see someone drink their way out of a vat of lager.
In Barfly Mickey Rourke plays Henry Chinaski, an alcoholic writer and alter ego to real life poet and “crown prince of self-abuse” Charles Bukowski. “Anybody can be a non-drunk,” he slurs. “It takes a special talent to be a drunk. It takes endurance.” He was so convincing in his portrayal that when Bukowski died The New York Post ran a picture of Rourke from Barfly rather than a photo of the poet.
“The World’s End” exists somewhere at the intersection of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Westworld,” “The Big Chill” and “Withnail and I,” but it’s not a geographical location. The new film from the makers of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” is about a state of arrested development, populated by a guy who never grew up, his friends who have and… robots.
