Film Review: "The World's End" (2013).

"Tonight, we will be partaking of a liquid repast as we wind our way up the Golden Mile. Commencing with an inaugural tankard in The First Post, then on to The Old Familiar, The Famous Cock, The Cross Hands, The Good Companions, The Trusty Servant, The Two-Headed Dog, The Mermaid, The Beehive, The King's Head, and The Hole in the Wall for a measure of the same, all before the last bittersweet pint in that most fateful terminus, The World's End… we will be in truth blind - drunk!" This what you’re in for with The World's End. This British science fiction comedy film directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg. It is the third in the Cornetto trilogy, following Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). The film follows a group of five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier. But as they unwittingly attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for humankind.

The World's End began as a screenplay director Edgar Wright wrote aged 21 titled Crawl, about a group of teenagers on a pub crawl. He realised the idea could work with adult characters to capture "the bittersweet feeling of returning to your home town and feeling like a stranger". Wright said he wanted to satirise the "strange homogeneous branding that becomes like a virus", explaining: "This doesn't just extend to pubs, it's the same with cafés and restaurants. If you live in a small town and you move to London, which I did when I was 20, then when you go back out into the other small towns in England you go 'oh my god, it's all the same!' It's like Bodysnatchers: literally our towns are being changed to death." After the story was complete, Wright and Pegg examined a list of real pub names and "tried to make them like tarot cards" to foreshadow the events of the story. All twelve pubs in the film use identical signage on menus and walls, reflecting what Wright called "that fake hand-written chalk" common to modern British pubs. The exteriors of the fictional pubs were shot at locations in Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City, with altered signage.

The film stars Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike. The performances in this film were some of the most hilarious performances I have ever seen. I believe no other filmmaker, apart from Seth MacFarlane and Wright himself, had directed actors to make me laugh my head off in the theatre. I enjoyed the performances from Pegg, Frost, Considine, Freeman, Marsan and Pike. Also it was a nice change to see that Pegg plays the 'idiot' or the 'incompetent' of the group when he was known to play the 'serious' and the character who had to carry the responsibility. But this time we see Frost take on that role when he was known to the 'clown' and 'idiot'.

The brilliant minds behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz successfully take a shot at the sci-fi genre with The World’s End. The result is a bitingly satiric and hugely entertaining parody.

Simon says The World’s End receives: