Going into The World's End, I had an unshakeable hunch that the movie I was about to see was not the one that most people were expecting. It's reasonable to expect that director Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's follow-up to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, two of the funniest movies of their decade, might be similarly hilarious. And yet, going in, I couldn't shake the feeling that the new movie wasn't going to be very funny at all.
I am grateful for that hunch, because it turned out to be exactly right: The World's End is not very funny, and in fact it's not really a comedy at all. There are maybe a dozen moments in the whole film that I found myself laughing out loud, and I think I laughed more often than anyone else in the cinema. So no, The World's End is not as funny as Shaun or Fuzz, but to get hung up on that is to risk missing the important fact that it is perhaps better than either of them. Which is, disappointing though the shift in tone and focus may be, ultimately the most important thing to take away from it.
I'm loathe to give away much if any of the movie, but it's difficult-unto-impossible to discuss what the film is and how it differs from its predecessors without at least talking about the first act, so here goes. Gary King (Pegg) dreams of a night in 1990 when he and five friends unsuccessfully attempted the "Golden Mile", a pub crawl that went through all twelve pubs in their hometown. Now entering his forties, Gary still considers that night the best of his life, but forever regrets not making it to the final pub on the route, The World's End. Hellbent on both conquering the challenge and recapturing the memories, he rounds up his old gang to take on the Mile once more. None of his old friends are very happy to see him again, least of all his once-best friend Andy Knightley (Frost), but all of them reluctantly agree to join him, if only to get him out of their hair once and for all.
Reunited, the gang returns home to find that the town has changed, and that Gary very much hasn't. He still treats his friends like props, squashing their feeble attempts to make the best of the night in the name of doggedly trying to repeat the past. Everyone's just about fed up only a few pubs in, when something happens that changes the course of the entire night. I won't say what, but where Shaun and Fuzz set their sights on zombie movies and buddy cop action respectively, The World's End is a science fiction film, specifically an alien invasion one. It's also a stunningly clever film, stuffed with grace notes that are sure to make repeat viewings satisfying for years to come. That much is to be expected of its pedigree, but what truly blindsided me is how biting the new film is. In place of jokes, The World's End has an abundance of complex, adult characters with very real problems and an array of themes that are expressed thoughtfully and (mostly) subtly.
There are two very important differences to this scenario as compared to the setups for the other two Cornetto films (for that is how the trilogy is collectively known): The first is the protagonist. While the slackers played by Pegg and Frost in the first two films were nobody's idea of a perfect human being they were likeable enough, and shaped by the actors and director with enough affection, that spending two hours with them in a silly comedy wasn't a hard ask. Gary, though, is too far gone to earn that kind of affection. He's too old, too desperate not to move on when everyone else has. He's pathetic, in a way that is far too raw and just plain sad to be funny. Pegg and Wright (who also wrote the script together) know this, and they are completely uncompromising - though not unsympathetic - in portraying him.
The second thing is that it takes a shockingly long time for the genre elements to rear their heads here. I didn't time it, but I'd estimate that things don't even begin to heat up until the thirty- or forty-minute mark of a film that comes in at a tidy 109 minutes total. This means that we spend an awfully long time in the company of Gary and his estranged friends before the carnage begins, and everything that happens afterwards is grounded by that first act. On top of that, the generic elements of the movie are far more subdued here than ever before. There are references aplenty, but they fade into the background , except where they intersect with the film's themes, or during its many action sequences. Gary may not be the biggest complication in his friends' lives any more, but they and the audience are never allowed to forget that their predicament is ultimately his fault.
The action sequences are, incidentally, fantastic. I run more cold than hot towards Wright's last film as director Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, but one thing it had in abundance were dazzling and well-staged CGI-enhanced fight scenes, and the ones here more than live up to that standard. Wright has always been a smart director, and his instincts have never been sharper. His signature attention-grabbing editing motifs are back and better than ever, married to some truly beautiful cinematography by Bill Pope that takes on many distinct forms throughout the film, every one of them perfectly attuned to the emotional needs of the scene.
There are really only two things that I can really think of to say against the film. One of them is contextual; it simply does not feel of a piece with the other two Cornetto films, and there are enough deliberate callbacks that you can't entirely keep those films out of your head while watching. The other, and regrettably more serious flaw is the ending. It's not even that it's bad, as such, just that it doesn't feel like part of the same film, tonally or thematically. It's possible that I missed something, but I could not square the final moments of the film with everything that had gone before, and it left things on a slightly deflated note.
Still and all, The World's End is as fine a piece of popcorn entertainment as we've seen in this admittedly somewhat impoverished Summer season. Fun and fast-moving enough to never feel draggy, but rooted enough in intelligent and subtle characterisation to be satisfying and meaningful long after its fizzier pleasures have faded away.
8/10
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