Movie Review - The World's End

I'll put my cards on the table.  I am a big fan on the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost combination and director Edgar Wright was not only involved with both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, he also directed another of my favourite movies Scott Pilgrim Vs The World.  So it is safe to say I went into The World's End with high expectations.  The question is just how many of my expectations were met.

The World's End sees 40 year old Gary King (Simon Pegg) reminiscing about leaving school and the night he and his four best friends, Oliver (Martin Freeman), Andrew (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan) and Steven (Paddy Considine) attempted "The Golden Mile", a pub crawl around his home town visiting 12 pubs culminating at the titular "The World's End".  They never finished it.  In an effort to recapture the glory days he convinces his mates to return and attempt the pub crawl again, however things get a little strange.

First up the quintet that lead this movie are wonderful.  These are five very good actors obviously having a great time and luckily the audience gets to share the fun.  Simon Pegg is really the glue that holds this movie together.  His portrayal makes Gary King a very unlikeable and annoying character and you find yourself wondering on more than one occasion why the others keep hanging around (a question asked by the characters themselves at a few points).  But as the movie progresses you can't help but warm to Gary, even though his character doesn't get any less abrasive, and admire the sheer bloody-minded persistence to get to his goal.

As for the story, well Shaun of the Dead was a wonderfully twisted take on zombie movies, Hot Fuzz took us into small town, police driven, murder mystery territory and this puts a whole new slant on...  no, I promised myself I would keep this spoiler free.

I also need to mention the soundtrack.  This movie is filled with fantastic tracks that don't just provide background noise to the action, it places it pretty much takes over and provides flawless accompaniment to what is happening on screen.  Put it this way, when I got home I went and found a Spotify playlist and grinned like a maniac thinking about what happened during most of the songs.

The World's End is a fantastic movie.  It starts off a little slow, but this suits the character's "what are we even doing here" attitude in the first act.  When it starts moving it builds nicely and the climax, well I don't want to call it perfect but it certainly suits what has happened previously and holds a few surprises of its own.  This movie is also incredibly funny, at one point my wife almost fell off her chair at a line that I feel should go down in movie history.  Go see the finale to the Cornetto trilogy, the Cornetto reference alone is sheer brilliance.  Stop reading, go see this, go on, I don't care what time it is, go!

In a word - Loaded.