The World's End

Three cheers for lotsa beers!

"Good food. Fine ales. Total Annihilation."

Hello all and welcome to Thursday's installation of The Tagline! Today, as mentioned, I will be talking about The World's End, a comedy starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. This film marks the end of the "Three Flavours Cornetto" trilogy, an arrangement of films all directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (the other two being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). This particular entry stars Pegg as Gary King, what I'd describe as a Grade-A Fuck-up, who gets his group of (very reluctant) high school buddies back together so that they can attempt a feat they failed in their youth: to drink their way through the 12 pubs of their hometown, one after another, in rapid succession. Despite their general disinterest and apparent resentment towards Gary, his four friends Peter, Oliver, Steven, and Andy (Frost) all agree to come along, after some cajoling/deceiving (also worth noting, if you want to establish the hierarchy of this group of friends, their last names conveniently organize them: Peter Page, Oliver Chamberlain, Steven Prince, and Andy Knightly) and it isn't long into the endeavor that things start to seem rather strange. At first noting the homogeneity of their former haunts, it becomes quickly evident that the pubs aren't the only things being homogenized. The town of Newton Haven has been invaded by... robots! Or, not robots, because they aren't slaves... no-bots. Well they aren't people!

Here the boys stand in worship.

I would say that this is the point where things start to get really weird, but that would be doing a great disservice to the opening act of the movie, which is still very funny and weird, even if there is no alien/automaton involvement in it. This is however where people start dismembering human simulants full of blue goo. These scenes of chaotic brawling and limb separation will be a less gory but still familiar sight for anyone who has seen the previous two films in the loosely arranged "trilogy". Also there is a lot of drinking in this movie. I mean obviously, it's about a pub crawl. This is also a contributing factor to the hilarity on offer, because as the situation is getting increasingly more serious and dangerous, the cast is becoming increasingly incapacitated due to their intense drunkenness. At the same time, they become more willing to engage in fist fights, so I guess that works sort of in their favor... or something.

This approximately sums up the movie.

Having seen Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, even with only a vague idea of the premise, I still felt like I had a pretty good idea of what to expect going into this movie. After having seen the film, I now feel totally vindicated in that assumption. It was funny, it was crass, it was decidedly British, and something really ridiculous happened at the end. Some people made a cursory attempt at taking issue with the ending, but honestly when you see it I don't think you'll be surprised that they decided to finish things with something totally off the wall. I daresay that it was pretty much par for course, for an Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg collaboration.  As with any of their previous works, if you are easily offended, this movie is probably going to offend you. A lot. Often. Otherwise it will probably only offend you a little, and the rest of the time you'll think it's a really funny movie. You just have to let yourself enjoy it! The music accompanying the film also serves to highlight the mind set of Gary, a man who is still living firmly in the early 90s. I can kind of relate. Except for the whole rampant substance abuse thing.

Break some chains, tear some heads off.

So far, The World's End has performed fairly well; it's generally out-grossing Shaun of the Dead, but not making quite as much as Hot Fuzz. That being said, The World's End is already creeping into the 40 million range for box office revenue, against a 20 million dollar budget. While it's probably seen the bulk of its revenues already, the film is still in theaters, so I imagine it will manage to pull in a bit more before it ends its run.

That's it for today! Expect to see Riddick cropping up here some time in the near future, and maybe The Mortal Instruments, which I'm hoping will be Twilight grade garbage, to help fill the hole in my life that was left in the wake of Breaking Dawn Pt. 2. Now where will I get my fix for really awkward and infuriatingly shitty movies that are funny without intending to be?