Plot: Gary King is a middle-aged alcoholic who regrets the time he failed to complete The Golden Mile with his old school friends where they do a pub crawl in the 12 pubs in their hometown Newton Haven, ending with the last pub, The World's End. So he tricks his old friends, who all have moved on and have their own jobs and/or have families, into coming back into Newton Haven to try to succeed where they failed all those years ago. But Gary's plan becomes a little more difficult when he and his friends start to notice some strange changes in their old hometown.
So what did I think about the final installment to this franchise that so many people seemed to instantly love? It's... not as good as the other two movies, but that in no way keeps it from being good. In fact, I was rather pleased with how it turned out when giving us a very different story and kinds of characters, particularity with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. With Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the difference between their characters in a generalized sense was kind of the same. Pegg's character was the more realistic or serious character as Shaun and Angel, and Frost was more the (for lack of better terms) immature or more laid back character as Ed and Danny. But here it's reversed with Frost's character, Andy is the more serious one because he moved on from Newton Haven like the rest of Gary's friends, whereas Pegg's character, Gary can't let go of the past, and so is the one that's more immature and/or laid back. And Pegg is very enjoyable as Gary King. Jeremy Jahns pointed out that this is a very different role for Pegg to play and...yeah I would agree with that. I may only know him mainly from the first two films, Paul and the Star Trek films, but I think I know enough of him to know that yes, this is very different from what he normally plays. And he does such a good job with this role, and I may go so far as to agree with Jahns in saying that this may be his best role that he's done because it's so different and he pulls it off so well. Nick Frost does a good job as the more serious one out of the two of them, but he's kind of downplayed. In fact, one of the kind of downs I have this movie when comparing it to the other two films is that we don't really get a whole lot of just Pegg and Frost together. This is of coarse understandable seeing is how you have Gary and Andy and their other old school friends to focus on which is all fine and good - I'm especially fond of Martin Freeman getting a much bigger role in one of these films, since he's starting to grow on me as an actor because of the Hobbit films and the Sherlock series - but the main focus on these films is supposedly suppose to be just Pegg and Frost, and we don't really get that until the last half hour or so. But maybe they meant it as just another way of making this film different from the other two films, and that's fine too. Anyway, the story is also very interesting just with what Gary's goal in the whole film is alone. I mean I really like how The World's End is actually this pub that he's trying to get to on this pub crawl, it was just so different from what I expected. And this film also has a big reveal about halfway through the movie. I won't give it away, but let's just basically say that, like Hot Fuzz, the reveal as to who or what is behind what is happening unique. So for all the the reasons why to like this movie, what keeps me from liking it as much as the other two? Well... surprisingly the comedy didn't do a whole lot for me. Now that in no way means that I didn't laugh at all, I want to make that clear, it give give me some funny moments. But I guess they just didn't make me laugh as much or where as memorable as the comedy in the other two films. But that's probably me comparing it too much to the rest of the trilogy based on what how I expected this movie to be like.
And that's my review for The World's End. The comedy, while there, may not be as big for me as it is for other people, but all in all, this film is a good final installment. It gave us different characters, it gave us a different story, it gave us different performances from Pegg and Frost, and they do it all very well. I think this movie is the weakest of the trilogy, but it's not weak enough to keep it from still being very enjoyable. If you haven't seen it, definitely give it a try and take it for what it's worth.
Rating: 80%
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