I guess I just don’t appreciate comedy because I rarely find
them funny. And so it goes for “The World’s End,” a loud, chaotic story about
five middle-aged Brits recreating an unfinished pub-crawl from their youth.
What they don’t know is that humanoid robots have infiltrated their hometown of
Newton Haven. Simon Pegg plays ringleader Gary King, an aging Goth who is
living in the past, a boy in a man’s body. Nick Frost is Andy Knightley, once a
heavy drinker but now a teetotaler. Martin Freeman is the sensible Oliver,
Paddy Considine is nice-guy Steven and Eddie Marsan is worrywart Peter. A
charming Rosamund Pike plays Sam, the girl who got away from more than one of
them.
The script, written by Pegg and director Edgar Wright, is
most engaging whenever the group is sharing pints. Their camaraderie and shared
memories feel very real. Had the movie stuck with this warm tone, it would have
resulted in a comedy with poignant underpinnings. Instead, “The World’s End” is
a mash-up of action, comedy and sci-fi apocalypse. The silly robot scenes, with
smashed heads and spurts of blue blood, just keeps going long after the novelty
has worn off. I assume the intent was to spoof Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it drags on and on as the boys
scramble to hit every pub on their itinerary and fight off the robots. And the
end is pointlessly long and meaningless. 8/23/13
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