TWE 4 Day Special; The World's End (Out Now)

The World's End (OUT NOW!)


Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost.
Rating/Volume: 7.4 (500)
My rating: DON'T WATCH
Source: Cineworld Cinemas

Welcome to the final instalment into Review The 250's four day The World's End special event where I have been reviewing Edgar Wright's top four films (one each day) concluding with The World's End today now that it in cinemas everywhere!

Well, I was very much looking forward to this film, as those of you who know me well will already know. It's all I have been talking about. My favourite film industry heroes back collaborating after a six year screen absence on a film idea that sounded so, them. My Mum said to me before we got to the cinema "I hope you won't be disappointed after all this hype you have given it". I said "No Mum! You don't know what you're saying". My Mum was not only correct, but she had foresight that was so dead on accurate it left me wondering whether she was a psychic. I often worried about finding movies that I genuinely disliked to review, because after all, I can't like everything and it's not as fun to read. I was one step away from reviewing Twilight just to give you all something a bit more juicy. I knew the time would come where I would find something I could lay into; I never thought it would be The World's End.

A quick bit of background for those who haven't been reading my blog for the past four days. Aptly named, The World's End is the final instalment of Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy with the first two films being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. It follows Gary King (Simon Pegg) who 20 years after he failed a 12 pub crawl with his four childhood friends decides to assemble them once again to go back to their home town of Newton Haven and finish the job. 12 pubs, 5 men, 50 pints! Or is that 60 pints? However, not all is well in Newton Haven as the lads soon realise that the town has been taken over by a race of robots. They must stick together to stop the robots realising they are not robots while trying to finish the pub crawl and reach the World's End. 

Sadly, this film failed to impress me throughout. I have to be honest, about a year ago when the synopsis was leaked/released I thought it sounded like a poor premise. How could they take a story like that and run with it successfully as a film? I was worried. It didn't sound like the grand finale that I wanted so badly. But nethertheless, I accepted what they'd given us and assumed they would make the best out of it. The story started off upbeat enough. First, there was an introductory montage explaining and describing what happened in the beginning; their school days and the first pub crawl. But even that was just what we saw in the trailer. After that it was all downhill. The start was slow, and I mean slow. Nothing really happened for the first 30 minutes of the film. There was little to no character depth established in the supporting cast. I didn't feel emotionally attached to their stories at all. We gained a bit of knowledge in the opening montage, but like I said, for that information I could have just looked up the Trailer on YouTube for free. A lot could have been put down to the writing. However, I myself would put it down to bad casting. Even though King's character suited being portrayed by Simon Pegg I did not think Nick Frost's character suited him one bit. Sadly, I think straight acting isn't really his gift. I would have really liked to keep Frost in a more comedic character. As for the rest of the gang found myself not caring about them all the way through. Which is a real shame I thought as I am usually such a big fan of the cast put together in these films. Individually I didn't find their performances terrible, but I just found the relationships between them disappointingly forced. I was much more of a fan of the ensemble cast whilst focusing on two or three main characters structure that was used in the first two films. I think having five main characters really detracted from the relationship of the two main characters anybody actually cared about. The ending, don't get me started on the ending. Lazy is not the word! Films with bad ending really haunt me. It says to me "well, the films only about average anyway so we might as well clock off early". Remember Knowing? Great film before the cop-out ending. I felt similar here. Except it was lacking the good beginning and middle. Great. It didn't even feel like closure. I almost wanted the ending to carry on. It left me very conflicted with how all the characters were left and yet at the same time I also found myself not caring. I think by then the damage had been done.

Another unavoidable fact was that aside from the odd one or two lines or scenes, it just wasn't funny. Which really pains me to say. Spaced, hilarious. Shaun of the Dead, hilarious. Hot Fuzz, I practically wet myself every time I watch it. Why would I expect any different from the same writers in the same type of film? At the end of the day, I could tell they were trying. In fact too hard. I found that they had to really wring out every laugh. Some lines were funny and even some whole pages of dialogue but it just wasn't the laugh a minute that Hot Fuzz was. It was just a modge of material that they tried to stitch together and make funny. I felt they were over relying on people finding inappropriately place swear words funny. It made what should have been a sophisticated comedy feel low brow. In addition, there were no memorable moments to share with friends. I'm referring to the reference generating material they have written in the past such as "Yarp", "Narp" and "I dunno, pub?". You could tell they were trying but it just didn't pay off. I was a huge fan of the subtle and understated comedy that should have been an integral part of the whole trilogy. That disappointed me more than anything else. I think there are a number of reasons for this. I do put a lot of it down to the lack of inspiration that they set themselves up for. Where do you go with the characters they created? I think anybody capable of making those four boring 9 to 5 adults and a sad AA patient funny would need a medal! Also, the few funny bits that they had in the film were given away in the trailer (surprise surprise!). How stupid. It's not all their fault. I think it's stupid how all trailers have to be 2:30 minutes long instead of about 1 minute. But still, I'd rather watch the trailer wanting more and be impressed with the film rather than loving the trailer and finding the film lacking. Are you counting the disappointments? 

Also, It had no character. You could barely tell the film was set in Britain. With Shaun of the Dead they showed an honest side of London, in Hot Fuzz it was your archetypal English village of the year. With The World's End I just wasn't feeling it. Considering it was a film about pubs I think the pubs looked so much better in the first two. It didn't feel as satirical either. One thing that Simon Pegg (and me too) was that the films were always been taken for parodies as opposed to just independent films. As annoying as this was I'd rather it have been mistaken for a genre parody than what they made instead. For me this film felt like The Watch combined with FAQs about time travel. Both lousy films in their own right. I can't quite put my finger on what was wrong with the whole character of the film, put I put a large proportion down to the fact that Edgar Wright's signature style just seemed to be lacking. I was looking out for all the signature daft little Wright directorial trademarks, and apart from the obvious fruit machine sounds there really weren't many. His dynamic camera shots had left for lunch, there were no big cameos and what would have been the funniest bit was left lacking. Throughout the whole film I was waiting for those famous lines "What's the matter, Andrew? You never taken a shortcut before?" right before they never happened. Big pity. It seemed to me like they were paying lip service to their own films with the half hearted references and the fact they were based around pubs. It lacked the true style that in my eyes would have made this a real trilogy. 

There were one or two redeeming qualities. I did laugh quite hard at the cornetto reference at the end. I almost thought they'd missed it out. In fact I'd go as far as to say it was the most inspired two seconds in the whole film. Bleak isn't it. Even if you take away the fact that it is part of a trilogy, it wasn't even the best stand alone film in the world. Comparing it to the first two films just make it look worse.

Overall, I can't explain how disappointed with this film I was. When I walked out of the cinema with a strange empathy for Annie Wilkes. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU KILLED MY MISERY?". Don't worry I'm not going to kidnap Edgar Wright and break his ankles until he makes it better even though I do really feel like it. My biggest hope is that he can pull through and give us a great Ant Man in 2015. I hope this was only a small blip into what will no doubt be a great career for Edgar Wright. Quite simply this film was comical in parts (unless you saw even a bit of the trailer) and it had a ending that was too silly for the style of film that it should have been. To those of you who are big fans of the Cornetto films, don't worry; at least we have the first two.

Well, that was it folks! I hope you have enjoyed this four day special on the release of The World's End. It's important to me to know whether you liked this format and would like me to do more events like this so please do give me feedback by commenting below or sending me a personal message.

The World's End is currently in cinemas everywhere in the UK and the US release date is August 23rd. Feel free to send me a message at reviewthe250@gmail.com with any comments and your own views and opinions and don't forget to leave a comment down below.

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Thanks for reading!

William


Next: Back on track, Jurassic Park (#227).