The World’s End is the concluding chapter in the so-called Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are the first two). Like the first two, TWE features Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in another variation of the buddy movie formula. Here, Pegg plays Gary, a feckless guy approaching middle age who never managed to recapture the glory years of his youth. Gary is on a quest to reunite with his high school friends for another try at an epic pub crawl that they first attempted in high school. That attempt ended short of Gary’s goal to reach The World’s End, the twelfth and final stop on their planned route.
Gary cajoles his friends into traveling back to their hometown of Newton Haven and their crawl begins at a rather generic-looking pub. The movie has plenty to say about the Starbuck-ification of British pub culture. A few pubs later, Gary gets into an altercation with a local who is not exactly human. The friends eventually realize that a sinister force has taken over the town and they must escape. But Gary convinces them that they must finish the pub crawl so as not to raise any alarms.
The movie is squarely aimed at aging Gen-X’ers like myself. The soundtrack alone could have been culled from my CD collection circa 1997. Pegg has a gift for playing men who are not quite ready to accept the responsibilities of adulthood and he and Frost play off each other with skillful ease. And the many fight scenes are choreographed with a finesse that many straight action movies lack. TWE is a funny, charming movie that is the perfect remedy to the onslaught of grim blockbusters that rampaged through cineplexes this summer.
