Four stars. Rating: R, for violence, pervasive profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang
This is, without question, the
funniest pub crawl ever brought to the big screen.
 |
| Another pub, and still only the same single flavor of beer. By now, our heroes — from left, Andy (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan), Gary (Simon Pegg), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Oliver (Martin Freeman) — are startng to wonder if something other than franchise blandness might be to blame... |
It’s also a cheeky delight that
gets much of its fizz from the slow, tantalizing unveiling of What’s Really
Going On: a reveal that deserves to remain a surprise for every viewer, much in
the manner of 1998’s The Truman Show.
That’s unlikely — which is a true shame — in an era when media outlets scramble
over each other in an effort to unleash mega-spoilers.
Because The World’s End is best viewed the way my companions and I did last
night: with an advance preview audience that hadn’t the faintest idea what
would come next.
So if this review remains
elliptical and vague in spots, blame my desire not to spoil any of the fun.
Life hasn’t been kind to Gary
King (Simon Pegg). Twenty years ago, his compulsory secondary education at an
end, he was on top of his world: young, free-spirited and popular with the lads
and lasses. By way of celebrating their impending release from school, Gary and
his four mates vowed to drink their way through the 12 pubs dotting the “golden
mile” of their bucolic UK community of Newton Haven.
They didn’t quite make it, but
that’s immaterial; the camaraderie was key.
This introductory flashback
unfolds, like a series of video snapshots, to Pegg’s sassy off-camera
narration. But his enthusiasm fades as we’re brought to the present day, to
discover that Gary is sharing this saga during a group therapy session.
Time has moved on; Gary hasn’t.
He’s still a self-absorbed layabout: a poster child for arrested adolescents
who failed to launch. A 40-year-old man (to quote this film’s equally droll
press notes) “trapped at the cigarette end of his teens.” And it eats at him.
His former best buds, long
estranged, have done better. More or less. Andy (Nick Frost) is a corporate
attorney; Oliver (Martin Freeman) is a buttoned-down real-estate agent who
shifts seven-figure properties. Steven (Paddy Considine) founded a successful
start-up, sold out when the time was right, and now enjoys the companionship of
a personal trainer half his age.
Peter (Eddie Marsan), the meekest
member of the one-time gang, got stuck with the family business — selling cars
— and seems little more than an afterthought to his wife and two children.
No surprise, then, that Gary
first broaches his “inspired” plan with Peter: to re-visit that tempestuous
night two decades back, but this time to succeed
... starting with The First Post and concluding with The World’s End. (Just in
passing, all 12 of these Newton Haven ale houses are named for actual English
pubs.)
