Movie Review: The World's End

When Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright team up great things happen. That’s almost a fact at this point. Well at least it might have been had ‘The World’s End’ turned out differently.

5 friends return to their hometown to complete a pub-crawl that they never finished. They soon find that their home has changed dramatically from their childhood and suspect that something has happened to the townspeople, together the 5 friends attempt to unravel what happened to their town all the while trying to reconnect with each other.

This plot is just as simple and malleable as that of ‘Shaun of the Dead’, both lay out a basic premise as a blueprint for the film allowing for comedy to take centre stage. The first 50 minutes of this film is a well-paced funny story, after that though things take a turn for the worse.

Simon Pegg has in the past taken on the straight-man role to Nick Frost’s unconventional comedic character, this time Pegg finally gets the opportunity to play the zany character something which he definitely does a great job at as he overshadows a cast of talented actors including Martin Freeman and Paddy Considine. Nick Frost just about satisfies in his role whilst managing not to impress in the least. Brief supporting appearances are made by the great Pierce Brosnan and Bill Nighy who find themselves hampered by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s weakest script to date. This movie just ultimately lacks the originality and playfulness of the previous two films in the series, also absent is the well paced and smartly structured plotting of the previous movies

It's hard to be disappointed in a cast like this.

 ‘The World’s End’ just simply doesn’t live up to its predecessors; it feels more like a tribute to the series than an actual entry. Simon Pegg tries his hardest to keep the movie going even as it plateaus after the first act, the laughs come back fewer and fewer after that until eventually what you’re watching is essentially a campy sci-fi movie without a hint of real humour. I feel that Edgar Wright’s direction is partly to blame for this definite flat line in the film, his trademark snap edits are here but only seem to be nods to ‘Hot Fuzz’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead’. Wright just seems to lose interest in the movie as it goes on, meaning his flair becomes less and less prevalent. The real issue with ‘The World’s End’ is that it never carves out its own distinct humour, instead choosing to borrow whatever it can off of its superior older brothers. Call it homage if you want but I call it lazy.

 ‘The World’s End’ is the weakest film made by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg to date it’s undeniable. It is not a bad movie but lacks almost all of the charm and freshness of a true Wright and Pegg collaboration, if this had been made by different filmmakers I would have considered it quite good but not in the hands of these two men, I expect too much of them. Honestly ‘The World’s End’ is just not worth seeing in cinemas, it’s simply not that good, my advice is to wait for it to be released on Blu-ray/DVD where I feel it will seem like less of a disappointment.