Review: The World’s End (2013)

It’s hard to describe the excitement many fans have experienced in the build up to this film. Appropriately titled for some, Edgar Wright‘s The World’s End marks the closing of a loose trilogy held together by Cornetto ice cream. Many will spend their column inches making metaphors of the movies and their relation to the famed ice cream, but instead let us get to business; does the third outing live up to its six year build up? Let’s take a look…

The aforementioned Edgar Wright has collaborated several times with onscreen duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The affable pair have been through thick and thin, through zombie lock ins to village shoot outs. Here their chemistry is put to the ultimate test as they play best friends far removed by the passing of time and an accident they prefer to avoid mentioning.

Gary King (Pegg), once renowned for his cool persona is now a drifter, intent on accomplishing what he and his friends failed to do thirteen years previously and finish the twelve pub golden mile in home town Newton Haven. After recruiting his old friends for the ride the five childhood friends find themselves back where they never thought they would be – home. Though the idyllic village doesn’t seem to have changed its inhabitants don’t seem quite right… is all as it seems?

To describe the nuances of the film would be detrimental in two ways. Firstly, for fans of Wright’s previous work – namely Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and cult TV hit Spaced – it would be preaching to the converted. Wright is widely heralded for his innovative use of close ups and sounds effects and such flares comfortably appear here. Secondly it would spoil a film widely filled with twists. Whilst Hot Fuzz peered into the (albeit exaggerated) cooky side of quaint village life, The World’s End turns this on its head and revels in its sci-fi roots with obvious glee.

To see Pegg and Frost effectively swap roles, here Pegg being the liability of the two, adds a different element to the film whilst the fact that they are joined by three fellow friends adds a new dynamic to their chemistry. Whilst Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Martin Freeman are all given their moments to shine whilst Rosamund Pike is great at Freeman‘s sister.

Fans will be pleased to hear that the comedy is still sharp here – but it’s a grown up kind of comedy, one that feels like a maturing older brother to the snooker wielding antics of its younger sibling. One often gets the feeling here that this may well be the Inbetweeners: Midlife Crisis movie that never was. There’s still plenty of gags however and if you think their clubbing days are over you may be wrong in more ways than one.

There are plenty of nods to previous efforts in The World’s End that will satisfy the hardest of fans whilst the social commentary throughout will leave open it up to new viewers. Quotable, silly and hugely fun The World’s End is a must watch – just prepare to need to see it again and again to catch every ounce of goodness.