Starring:
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine
On their
final day of school, Gary (Thomas Law, Pegg), Andrew (Zachary Bailess, Frost),
Steven (Considine, Jasper Levine), Oliver (Luke Bromley, Martin Freeman) and
Peter (Eddie Marsan, James Tarpey) go on the Golden Mile, a route of twelve
pubs culminating in the watering hole, The World's End. They never made it. Now
middle-aged, Gary gathers the gang back together and back to their hometown of
Newton Haven for another crack at the Golden Mile, only for the gang to
discover that the town might have undergone some significant, and truly
other-worldly, changes.
The third instalment
in Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy with comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost,
following on from Shaun Of The Dead (2005) and Hot Fuzz (2007), The World’s End
sees the group now as some of the hottest commodities in modern cinema and with
heightened production values, The World’s End is a glossier production than
what came before. Whilst the larger scale that this allows give the film a
glossier sheen and pays off in certain circumstances, it also causes the film
to lose some of the cuddly charm of the initial two instalments. Still, The
World’s End is fairly faithful to what has come before, utilising various
elements from the first two films. The pub showdowns recall Shaun Of The Dead
and much like Hot Fuzz there’s a former James Bond providing a supporting role.
It’s Simon Pegg who overall stands tall in this film; the character of Gary
leaps and bounds through Newton Haven in a state of arrested adolescence making
him both intentionally annoying and endearing but his cast of merry men also
deliver, even if they have a tendency to fade towards the background. Nick Frost
in particular achieves a rare serious performance that pays dividends. As
concluding parts in trilogies go, The World’s End isn’t ideal, but it belongs
in the realms of Return Of The Jedi (1983) and The Godfather: Part III (1990).
It’s definitely the weakest of three instalments, but it’s still pretty good on
its own merits.
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