The World’s End

♪That’s great, it starts with a flashback, birds and gents,
A drinking quest – Gary King is not afraid.
Nigh on dawn break, listening to babble fish,
World serves for other men, ours have failed to complete.
Feeding off that memory, grunt, no youth.
The latter doesn’t matter, King fears naught he ought.
Summoned by a liar, representing middle age, his homies should retire from this comic blight.
Left of sense and coming in a worry with doubters breathing down their neck.
Team of five reporting baffled, stumped, patience stopped.
Look at that, no bra-in!
Fine then,
Uh oh, overflow, in the loo, look out below, robot men?
Save yourself, serve a glass. World serves its own beer, listen to that nagging fear
Dummy with a human form throughout the village, right? Right.
You non-bucolic, alcoholic, slam, fight, all night, feeling pretty psychotic.

It’s the end of the world as we know it
It’s the end of the world as we know it,
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
Let’s grab a pint. ♫

In case that was unclear, lemme ‘splain: Gary King  (Simon Pegg) wants to recreate an unfinished pub crawl quest from his youth. The goal was twelve venues, terminating at The World’s End. He and his buddies got to nine. Gary is now in his 40s, but hasn’t emotionally grown beyond 17. His friends have. Still, he’s one of those guys you just can’t say, “no” to. Mostly, because he doesn’t understand no. He also doesn’t understand truth, sexual relationships, the concept of aging and several other concepts most adults have down. Out of feeling badgered more than actual desire, the other four members of the original quest, Andy (Nick Frost), Oliver (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Peter (Eddie Marsan), reluctantly sign up for the reunion tour. For the first half hour, the joke is Gary’s constant state of arrested development contrasted with the relative stoicism and foreboding of his companions. Also, their home town of Newton Haven has changed just enough to become tiresome. Mostly, it has to do with the pubs all looking the same, hence the pub crawl seems very matter-of-fact rather than a thrill-ride to recapture misplaced youth.

Speaking of misplaced youth, Gary has a bathroom run in with a local teen. Getting the better of his opponent, Gary smashes the kid’s head into an upright urinal. The head snaps off the neck like a lego detachment and blue liquid pours out. WTF?! Within a minute, our quintet is battling a similar number of replicant foes. Upon vanquishing the cybernetic opponents, our boys come up with a strategy: continue the pub crawl as intended. The non-bathroom located robots would get wise, you see, and besides, nobody else has a better plan. This is the genius of Edgar Wright. You take the mundane, you add the fantastic and a conspiracy to boot, and then go back to the mundane. Just because circumstances have changed doesn’t mean circumstances have to change.

I wish I were an Edgar Wright Brother. I really do. Their world seems so cool and nerdy. But I’m not. I liked Shaun of the Dead. I loved Scott Pilgrim.  I liked World’s End. I didn’t really care for Hot Fuzz. In general, I liked the ingenuity and unique feel for these pics a great deal more than I liked the pics themselves. That said, there are many worse ways to waste an afternoon than silly sci-fi. I hope Edgar Wright keeps making films long into old age.

C’mon down and grab a beer
There’s only 11 more to go, my dear
Town disintegration?
Alien invasion?
Disappointing Gary is the true thing to fear

Rated R, 109 Minutes
D: Edgar Wright
W: Edgar Wright & Simon Pegg
Genre: Buckaroo Bonzai
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Those who worship at the altar of Edgar Wright
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Teetotalers

♪Parody inspired by “End of the World as We Know It”