In 2004, we consumed our first Cornetto with ‘Shaun of the Dead’. Three years later, we had a second helping with ‘Hot Fuzz’ - and now it’s time for the third and final flavour, ‘The World’s End’.
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are all brilliant at what they do in their own right, but it’s no doubt that they’re at their best when all together, a theme evident in their latest adventure. 20 years ago, five mates attempted The Golden Mile, the ultimate pub crawl consisting of 12 pubs, 60 pints and one night they’ll never forget... or remember, depending on how you look at it. While the crawl was never completed, it’s still considered the greatest night of Gary King’s (Simon Pegg) life. Two decades on, he's now a depressed drug addict desperately clutching to his youth. Despite the other four guys (Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine & Eddie Marsan) having gone their separate ways and grown up, Gary decides to get the lads back together to finish what they started - but as Thomas Wolfe once said, you can’t go home again... well you can, there’s just blue-blooded robot alien thingies living there now.
Arguably the weakest of the three films, ‘The World’s End’ tackles much darker and weightier subjects than its predecessors - and yet Wright, ever the genius, manages to find the laughs (and plenty of them) in between emotional confessions and confrontations. Fans also might not be in favour of our dynamic duo Pegg and Frost playing characters who spend the majority of the film at odds with one another.
Even with zombie apocalypses and all-out gun fights to their credit, ‘The World’s End’ boasts some of the most elaborate, exciting, funny and unique fight scenes that rival any Bruce Willis film. Without a karate-chop or roundhouse kick to be seen, these action sequences are exactly what they hope to portray - drunk men fighting aliens, with the aid of bar stools, bottles, moxie and resourcefulness, all while downing a pint and pausing for well-earned laughter.
‘The World’s End’ boasts some of the most elaborate, exciting, funny and unique fight scenes that rival any Bruce Willis film.
Unfortunately, the film's final act is rather bleak, with a tongue-in-cheek element instead of their signature upbeat and comical style, leaving you with a feeling of wanting, in more ways than one.
While an unintentional trilogy in the beginning, the first two films display a certain cohesion in both tone, look and humour. ‘The World’s End’ still has the comedy, but is definitely a standalone film, in spite of the cast, fence-jumping and, of course, Cornettos. It still satisfies your “ice cream” craving, but just barely.