After the underperformance of 2010’s Scott Pilgrim Versus The World – which, despite what the fanboys insisted, never quite managed to work out the problems inherent in its source material – Edgar Wright has returned to the UK to pick up that genre-spoofing thread he initiated with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, first on TV’s Spaced, and then on film with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that The World’s End should itself concern a reunion: one where the participants are picking up older if not always wiser, in search of good times that may have long gone. Its five heroes are men in their late thirties who’ve temporarily put their desk jobs and other responsibilities on hold to return to their (fictional) hometown of Newton Haven; there, they mean to finish the epic pub crawl their teenage selves couldn’t handle.
This mission has been initiated by self-styled “legend” Gary King, the only one among the five not to have settled down, and after a run of decidedly not-Wright solo ventures (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Paul, A Fantastic Fear of Everything), it’s a considerable relief to have the funny Pegg back among us in the role.
Ever since Spaced, Wright has known exactly how to regulate Pegg’s willingness to play blokey, prattish or clueless: what follows depends on us seeing past “King Gary”’s lairy asides and adolescent recklessness and understanding that this pub crawl is his own (typically, but not wholly, misguided) 12-step plan to get what passes for his life back on track – and something even an imminent apocalypse isn’t going to stop.
This last plot turn (and near-identical titling) suggests some crossover between The World’s End and the similarly chummy This is the End, but – as in Shaun and Fuzz – Pegg and Wright have come up with a very British take on this material. Where the Seth Rogen joint could afford to kill off Rihanna before its first act was out, The World’s End relies on less starry but still familiar faces who add new and varied comic notes, pull out subtleties in this script, or simply make unusually convincing drunks. (One recurring joy: Eddie Marsan’s pished face.)
Clearly, the pub crawl is undertaken in the shadow of mortality – we’re told early on that Gary’s mum has recently passed away – and the first act involves these almost middle-aged guys striving to work through long-suppressed traumas and personal grievances. By the time the film becomes a robot-invasion movie after 40 minutes, we’ve had more funny or affecting character business than there was in the entirety of Pacific Rim – or could be made out beneath the deafening snark and masturbation gags of This is the End.
From here on out, The World’s End essentially becomes a series of variants on that epochal scene in An American Werewolf in London where the outsiders get frozen out by strange locals, as updated via last year’s cheeky, Shaun-inspired Irish monster mash Grabbers, where (again) a planet-threatening invasion had to be thwarted by folk who’ve got themselves ever so slightly tipsy.
It’ll be the film that confirms Wright as among the most inventive action directors currently working: as opposed to the dull widescreen clanking going on elsewhere this summer, The World’s End stages properly grabby, tactile, close-quarters fight scenes, carefully edited to preserve both the splatter (the robots leak inky blue blood, which may soothe the squeamish even as it ups the potential for “Big Society” subtexts) and such quasi-musical flourishes as Gary’s attempt to negotiate one robo-assault without spilling his pint.
Every set-up has its pay-off, right through to a final reel in which Gary comes, almost inevitably, to pick a philosophical fight during a lock-in with our new overlords, a sequence that cues both a terrific punchline, and an unimprovable closing-credit song. If it sometimes gets broad, that may be a reaction to the nerdily niche Scott Pilgrim, and not necessarily a bad thing – even so, it’ll still hit the spot with those who grew up listening to the Soup Dragons, and anyone who’s ever questioned why most modern pubs look so similar. And it’ll make for a knockout drinking game when the DVD finally staggers out.
(MovieMail, July 2013)
The World's End screens on Channel 4 at 10.25pm tonight.
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