It's just the End of the World, man.
Many movies start out great. The big idea at the heart of the picture is right there, ready to roll from the first frame. But many fizzle out before the end, leaving you disappointed with the failure to build on that first great notion.
The World's End, the final (?) episode in the Cornetto Trilogy, written and directed by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, didn't have that problem. The ending of the film (no spoilers) was unexpected, delightful, and strange. It was a Big Finish with capital letters, starbursts, and a full-fledged kazoo chorus.
At the same time, however, The World's End was also about people, flawed, hurting, frightened people...and that was before the blue-blooded 'bots showed up. I've long thought that Simon Pegg has in it him to be a really good actor, not just someone playing variations on himself. He's been a very Peggish Scotty in the Star Trek Reboot and a very Peggish Boffin in the latest Mission Impossible. In The World's End, he plays a character unlike himself -- or so I hope.
Gary King is a mess. He's never grown up, and not in a good way. He drives the same car, wears the same clothes, listens to the same music, does the same drugs that he did when he was eighteen. His friends have all grown up, and not in a good way. They are stuck in ruts so deep that it looks like night when they look up, even in broad daylight.
Simon Pegg is very good in this movie, but the revelation here is Nick Frost. Usually a second-banana, backing up Simon Pegg and acting as his conscience, here he becomes an actor impossible to ignore. His range is amazing and you find yourself rooting for him even when he's being rather a drag.
The rest of the ensemble turns in stellar work, even if some must contend with people in the audience saying 'he was in Harry Potter!' It's a British film, guys. *Everyone* was in Harry Potter. Eddie Marsden (not in HP, but in S.H....Sherlock Holmes) is rapidly becoming someone I look for in a movie. He's always good and here does an amusing take on cowardice. The beautiful Rosamund Pike is rather wasted in this as she mostly just runs in and out and looks surprised. Martin Freeman's character is the most underwritten of the group and there's a reason...but that would be a spoiler.
Ah, but the ending. I don't often recommend you see a movie just for the ending but this one, I do.
The World's End, the final (?) episode in the Cornetto Trilogy, written and directed by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, didn't have that problem. The ending of the film (no spoilers) was unexpected, delightful, and strange. It was a Big Finish with capital letters, starbursts, and a full-fledged kazoo chorus.
At the same time, however, The World's End was also about people, flawed, hurting, frightened people...and that was before the blue-blooded 'bots showed up. I've long thought that Simon Pegg has in it him to be a really good actor, not just someone playing variations on himself. He's been a very Peggish Scotty in the Star Trek Reboot and a very Peggish Boffin in the latest Mission Impossible. In The World's End, he plays a character unlike himself -- or so I hope.
Gary King is a mess. He's never grown up, and not in a good way. He drives the same car, wears the same clothes, listens to the same music, does the same drugs that he did when he was eighteen. His friends have all grown up, and not in a good way. They are stuck in ruts so deep that it looks like night when they look up, even in broad daylight.
Simon Pegg is very good in this movie, but the revelation here is Nick Frost. Usually a second-banana, backing up Simon Pegg and acting as his conscience, here he becomes an actor impossible to ignore. His range is amazing and you find yourself rooting for him even when he's being rather a drag.
The rest of the ensemble turns in stellar work, even if some must contend with people in the audience saying 'he was in Harry Potter!' It's a British film, guys. *Everyone* was in Harry Potter. Eddie Marsden (not in HP, but in S.H....Sherlock Holmes) is rapidly becoming someone I look for in a movie. He's always good and here does an amusing take on cowardice. The beautiful Rosamund Pike is rather wasted in this as she mostly just runs in and out and looks surprised. Martin Freeman's character is the most underwritten of the group and there's a reason...but that would be a spoiler.
Ah, but the ending. I don't often recommend you see a movie just for the ending but this one, I do.
No comments have been added yet.
