The World's End

As the concluding segment of the "Cornetto Trilogy," The World's End is a bit more unique than the previous two films. While all three films were uniquely original in their own right, this entry charts more new ground than either of the previous films. Mixing comedy, sci-fi thrills and coming of middle-age drama, this one is a strange and strangely fulfilling film in it's own right. 

Gary King (played by Simon Pegg) has been having a tough time of it. He knows deep down that he peaked in High School and now almost almost twenty years after graduation he's still living in the past. He decides to gather his old friends Andy Knightly (played by Nick Frost), Steven Prince (played by Paddy Considine), Oliver Chamberlain (played by Martin Freeman), and Peter Page (played by Eddie Marsan) to relive the glory days by re-attempting a pub crawl through their hometown called The Golden Mile. Somehow, he manages to talk them all into returning to their hometown for the pub crawl but as the night goes on it becomes clear to them that something is not right in their old hometown. Joined by Oliver's sister, Sam (played by Rosamund Pike), the group is horrified to discover that the residents of the town have been taken over and replaced by robotic duplicates by a group of aliens referred to as The Network. While trying to figure out what to do, the group decides to continue on their pub crawl, although figuring out how to fight back against the aliens get decidedly harder the drunker they get. 

Drawing inspiration from such classic Science Fiction as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, and The Stepford Wives, director Edgar Wright and co-writer Simon Pegg crafted a thoroughly unique tale. The idea that saving the world falls on a group of reunited friends on a pub crawl is an intriguing one. Add in some unresolved issues between the friends, an unexpected love triangle and a wild card of a lead character, the unhinged Gary King, and drop it all in the middle of an alien invasion makes for an amusing, and at times surprisingly touching, adventure. They also came up with an intriguing villain in the Network, who believe they are helping improve the human race by upgrading people into cheery robotic replacements (or Smashy Smashy Egg Men as Andy suggests calling them since the robot replacements are surprisingly fragile, especially their heads, as well as the fact that they don't like being called robots). I also found the design of the robots Smashy Smashy Egg Men to be rather imaginative. When a limb or head is yanked off, the nub is not unlike that of a life size action figure or Barbie doll (because lord knows we all want to decapitate Man Bun Ken) filled with royal blue fluid. It's just something I've never quite seen in a movie before and I appreciated that. Since the Robot Smashy Smashy Egg Men limbs seem to be interchangeable, it adds for some wild fight sequences as well, as in one case one Smashy Smashy Egg Woman replaces their destroyed arms with the legs of another destroyed robot before attacking the group again. The film also continues the trend of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg cleverly foreshadowing the entire film in the opening scenes of the film. Still, the film contains several neat surprises in addition to their clever foreshadowing hints.

This film is probably the most mature of the three films, focusing on a group of childhood friends reuniting and taking stock of their life as they deal with the fact that they're all approaching 40. Simon Pegg turns in a fantastic performance as Gary King. Gary is a man who has been living in the past, driving the same old car and listening to the same music.He gets his group of childhood friends back together in a last ditch attempt to relive the glory days. His friends have all moved on to careers and families and therefore are hesitant to go back. They ultimately decide to in part because they feel sorry for Gary. Pegg really captures the essence of the character as a man who is desperately trying to be happy and peppy to all his friends and keep the party moving forward no matter what, but as the film goes on, it becomes clear how broken and how deep in despair Gary really is. It's an unexpectedly deep and moving performance from Pegg that really caught me by surprise. It's a nice touch that they switched up the roles this time around. For the past two films, Pegg has played the more straight arrow and Nick Frost has played the more slacker character. This time, Pegg is the mess and Nick Frost plays straight arrow lawyer Andy. Paddy Considine and Rosamund Pike turn in nice performances as well as the other two parts of a love triangle of sorts with Pegg's character. Pierce Brosnan shows up as the boys' former school principal now alien spokesperson and makes an interesting villainous turn (and it also marks the second former Bond to show up as a villain in one of these films, with the added bonus of former Bond girl Pike as well). 

The World's End marks the closing of the informal "Cornetto trilogy" as I mentioned in my review of the previous film, Hot Fuzz. The trilogy ends on a high note with some dazzling action, imaginative plot and surprisingly deep writing backing this one. While I still consider Hot Fuzz my favorite of the three, it is by the narrowest of margins with the other two films tying for second place for different reasons. If you put a gun to my head and made me choose only one for second place, much to my surprise, I think I'd have to give it to The World's End.