Cornetto Trilogy: Part III

The World’s End is my least favorite of the “Cornetto Trilogy”.  That is not to say that I do not like the film.  In fact, I enjoy it very much.  However, it just does not seem to hit the same stride as the previous two films.

The World’s End is the story of five friends who reunite to conquer a pub crawl amidst an alien invasion.  This movie, like Shaun of the Dead, deals with very personal human issues.  Gary King (played by Simon Pegg) is in his 40’s, and is going through somewhat of a mid-life crisis.  He feels that finally conquering the Golden Mile will rid him of his pain.  The problem is, he has not changed at all from when he was a kid.  He drives the same car and wears the same clothes.  Every one of his friends has grown up and moved on, so they are reluctant to join him.  Amidst the comedy (or lack thereof), this actually is a very moving story.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost return as Gary King and Andy Knightly.  I have a hard time taking Pegg seriously in this movie.  It feels like he is trying too hard to be a villainous character.  Everything he does just feels so forced.  Nick Frost is a quite serviceable dramatic actor.  I like that Andy looks down on Gary because he has not changed.  There is also a very personal reason why the two characters have not spoken in many years, and that felt very meaningful.  If Gary was not the leader of the group, Andy easily could be.

The World’s End has the most visual effects of the three movies, and Edgar Wright uses them in spectacular fashion.  There are some awesome fight sequences that will make your jaw drop.  The big problem with The World’s End is that, in comparison with the previous movies, it is just not that funny.  I think the writers thought that what they were writing was funny and I think they knew it was funny to them personally, but it just did not resonate with me.

I do not want anybody to be discouraged by this blog.  The World’s End is a good movie, and I think if I was ten years older I would enjoy it even more because of the issues that it deals with.  Overall though, I was a bit disappointed with the movie.