[Films] The World's End

And now for something a little different from the run of Hollywood blockbusters and superhero films. Simon Pegg is back with the last in the 'Cornetto' trilogy, which means that it's comedy time.

A loosely thematic trilogy rather than a story-based one, the 'Cornetto trilogy' comprises films that each involve a different colour, i.e. a different flavour of Cornetto. The 'red' film was "Shaun of the Dead", an excellent zom-rom-com (as Pegg termed it) that I've seen many times. The 'blue' film was "Hot Fuzz" which I'm told is an excellent buddy-cop style film. I own it on DVD but, to my chagrin, have never watched it.

The final film is the 'green' instalment: "The World's End". Figuring out why it's the 'green' film is part of the fun, but the film as a whole is an excellent experience that had me laughing out loud the whole way through.

I love this poster. It's so old-school. (Credit: sfx.xo.uk)

The premise of the film is odd. Gary King, a down on his luck character played by Pegg, decides to reunite his old school friends and recreate a legendary pub crawl in their home town. The first time around they never finished it, and this time he's determined to see it through to the end. The problem is that while he is stuck in the past, his four friends have moved on with their lives, and are understandably reluctant to follow in King's footsteps as they once did. Nevertheless, they are all coerced into it. When they reach their home town and start the pub crawl all seems to be normal, until about three pubs in when it turns out that the entire town has been taken over by 'robots'. Then it all kicks off, and Gary King tries anything to finish the pub crawl, even in the face of ridiculous danger and at the cost of his friends. This is Pegg on top form.

Just five friends out for a pint (or 12). Guess which one is trying to recapture lost glory? 

(Credit: gigglebeats.co.uk)

What makes this film are the characters, and their interactions. Gary King turns seems to be a selfish loser at first, doing anything to recapture his youth, and not below lying to his friends (who he hasn't seen for years) about some pretty serious stuff. As the film progresses he becomes more and more desperate, and by the end it's revealed that he's really not got much to live for, and has some very serious problems. Much like in "Shaun of the Dead" though these aren't dwelt upon. They're merely brought up as part of his character, and then they just are. I like this approach; it's much more realistic, and acknowledges that we all have flaws but that they aren't the focus of our personality. It makes the characters three-dimensional.

Nick Frost turns in an excellent performance as the former best friend/wingman turned teetotal. It's a very different role to what we've seen before, and he pulls it off with aplomb. His justified anger at Pegg's self-centred character is palpable, and he genuinely seems to want to help Gary, but just can't get through to him. Sadly it all goes downhill a bit towards the end, but it's a great performance. The other supporting characters are all interesting as well, but have less of a role to play than Frost, and the only female character is somewhat shortchanged by the script.

This is a great picture. Nick Frost saving the day while Simon Pegg is single-mindedly focused on the drinking.

Sums up their relationship in the film quite nicely! (Credit: chrisandphilpresent.co.uk)

The 'robots' are a great piece of design, and I loved the modular nature of them. Heads and limbs pop on and off all over the place; it's a pity they didn't do more with it, although the one instance of legs-for-arms was brilliant. It also gives them a rather sinister nature. If you pull them apart, they can just stick themselves back together, and even smashing bits of them doesn't seem to help. The sudden change in their movement when the robots are revealed is creepy, but also rather funny as the infiltrators all suddenly act like stereotypical robots, all jerky motion and lockstep running.

The end of the film is unexpectedly dark, but fitting, as it turns out that there are consequences for Gary King being a selfish idiot. Predictably, he comes out of it alright, but the rest of humanity suffers for his stubbornness. Even at the end of civilisation as we know it though there are happy elements to the ending for all of the characters. It is also only at the end that the reason for this film being 'green' become apparent. 

The robot invasion is really only a backdrop for the character development going on, but turns

out to have serious consequences. The robots themselves are suitably creepy. (Credit: scificool.com)

This is a very funny, very moving film that deserves to be widely seen. Much like Pegg and Frost's previous work together it is the characters that drive it forward through its off the wall premise; this is the strongest example yet of that aspect of their films. Go and see it; you won't be disappointed.