Movie Review: The World's End (2013)

Ay yi yi. Are the holidays over yet? I need my regular boring life back.

Edgar Wright. Simon Pegg. Nick Frost. No joke, three of the greatest things to happen to movies in the last decade. Shaun of the Dead is beyond words brilliant as a rom-zom-com with blood, guts, belly laughs, and a lot of heart. Hot Fuzz was an immensely successful follow-up that ventured into the buddy-cop action movie genre, but still had the blood, guts, belly laughs, and possibly even more heart. And now the fan-coined "Cornetto Trilogy" concludes with the appropriately titled The World's End. The blood and guts are blue this time, but they're there, and so are the belly laughs and never-ending heart.

Five childhood friends return to their hometown to attempt to complete an epic pub crawl they began over 20 years ago - 12 pubs in one night, concluding at The World's End. As the boys rehash old times and deal with their issues, they realize that the town is not the same as they remember, and for good reason, too - most of the townspeople have been replaced by robots.

The boys surely haven't lost their touch in creating something that audiences will love, both newcomers and those already familiar with their work. Once again I was impressed by the writing and the delivery of the writing by all the actors. The jokes come at rapid-fire pace (and people make fun of me for always using subtitles) and the humor is smart, sometimes dirty, but always cleverly laid out in relation to what the movie is about and situations that come later. Watching the movie again lets you catch on to some references you missed before, the double meaning behind some of the lines ("We're here to get annihilated!" "It must be the network"). They did similar things in their previous two films, but it still works and it's still brilliant how they're able to pull it all together.

Pegg and Frost are of course great in their roles, especially since here they are sort of playing a reversal of their previous roles in both Shaun and Hot Fuzz. Pegg is the wild and goofy Gary King, spouting out more one-liners than I could keep up with, while Frost is the more professional, subdued Andy Knightley. Nobody plays best buddies better than dudes who are actually best buddies in real life. Truth be told, though, I kind of loved the actors playing the other three friends in the group - Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan - a bit more, as they were all completely adorable and hilarious. It was good to see all of them have their chance to shine, instead of the movie being all about Pegg and Frost (not that they would intentionally do that, but they are the stars of the show to the fans).

Looking at the movie for what it is on the surface, it works as a weird hybrid action-scifi-comedy-bromance thing but there is a message and a reasoning for what they did. I liked the whole thing at the end about how human beings have every right to be fuck-ups because I get it. Conformity makes you normal and safe, but making mistakes lets you learn, become wiser, and help others. There's also something there about conforming and making uniform all the charming small town pubs and stores and whatnot (as two of the pubs in the movie look exactly the same) which is also somewhat bothersome. How long until real mom-and-pop places just cease to exist? However you choose to look at it, The World's End is a very charming movie about the simple things in life - friendship, a good night out at the pub - and how important they are to people.

It almost feels wrong to heap so much praise on pretty much everything these guys do, but I really can't help it. I fucking love Shaun of the Dead, I really super-duper like Hot Fuzz, and now I'm all kinds of giddy over The World's End. Wright and Pegg probably aren't completely done making movies but I do wonder about what they are going to do next. Something totally different? More of the same but different actors or something? I don't know, but I do know that I will be right there to experience whatever they come up with.

Images of Behind-the-Scenes Cameos

I'm a rebel and I'm tagging myself for the latest meme making the blogosphere rounds - the one of a collection of images from films that share a certain theme. My topic is perhaps less intellectual but it's time for some fun on TheGirl's blog. I'm doing Images of Behind-the-Scenes Cameos. That is, writers and directors and whatnot doing cameos in their movies, or in other people's movies. Some are good, some are bad, some are just funny, some if you blink you'll miss 'em.

Sorry, I couldn't find screen grabs for all of them.



1) Alfred Hitchcock in Rope. As the whole movie takes place in one apartment, playing "Where's Hitch?" can be hard in this film. Just before the film starts, though, there is a shot of the street and Hitch is one of the pedestrians. Another one I didn't know of is the pink neon outline drawing of him in the background. Clever.

2) Stephen King in Rose Red. SK has made numerous cameos in his movies, of course, but I laughed out loud when he appeared as a dorky pizza delivery guy in Rose Red. It was probably the best thing about that movie.

3) Takashi Miike in Hostel. Eli Roth's nod to one of his favorite directors (and mine), Takashi Miike makes a rather creepy appearance in Hostel. "Be careful. You could spend all your money in there."

4) Linda Blair in Scream. Random cameo that doesn't really make sense, except that she's a big horror name. Most people don't know it's her.

5) Wes Craven in Scream. Much funnier cameo. Wes plays the janitor, "Fred," wearing a red and green striped sweater, and ugly brown hat. Hm. Wonder what that's a reference to...

6) David Cronenberg in Jason X. Who doesn't love a little wild-haired Dave Cronenberg? Great cameo from the opening scenes of Jason X.

7) Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in Land of the Dead. There's a great extra on the Land of the Dead DVD about Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's visit to the set to do their cameos as zombies in the film. George Romero was apparently a big fan of Shaun of the Dead, and how could you not be?

8) Peter Jackson in Hot Fuzz. On the flip side, Peter Jackson had a very, very, very, very small cameo in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Hot Fuzz as the Santa Claus who stabs Simon's hand. 

9) Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert in The Evil Dead. I'm going to have a few of Sam Raimi-Ted Raimi-Bruce Campbell cameos because they're so great. Sam and Rob (the producer) played the two guys standing on the side of the road at the beginning, as Bruce Campbell says in the commentary. Sorry, no picture.

10) Bruce Campbell in Spider-Man 2. Okay, I know that Spider-Man 2 isn't a horror movie, but I loved Bruce Campbell as the "Snooty Usher" in this scene. Runner-up best Bruce Campbell cameo was at the end of Darkman.

11) Ted Raimi in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. Sam's little bro Ted gets his share of cameos, as well. In the first Evil Dead, Ted plays various arms and legs and things for insert shots, and in Evil Dead 2 he plays the Henrietta monster in the basement.

12) Greg Nicotero in From Dusk Till Dawn. Ha! Forgot about this, didn't you? Greg Nicotero, one of the three geniuses behind KNB EFX Group, has a bit part as a sexy long-haired biker at the Titty Twister in From Dusk Till Dawn. His switchblade is no match for Tom Savini's penis gun. Again, sorry, no screen grab.

13) John Waters in Seed of Chucky. John Waters is big Chucky fan. John want Chucky to kill him. John get wish.

14) Ruggero Deodata in Hostel 2. The director of the classic Cannibal Holocaust has a fitting cameo as the cannibal who is eating Viktor Krum (well, you know... the guy who played Viktor Krum in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) in Hostel 2. 

15) Alfred Hitchcock in Dial M for Murder. To round out the list, another Hitch cameo, just as obscure as his cameo in Rope. Dial M for Murder also mostly takes place in one room and Hitch's cameo is him in the reunion picture that Tony Wendice shows to the potential wife-murderer, Swann. He's there in the far left corner.