Geek Girl Features

Despite the fact actor Simon Pegg did not intend his final installment to the Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy to serve as a parody, “The World’s End” nonetheless serves to do just that, as it manages to poke fun at the apocalyptic genre that is a wild favorite in the early 2010’s.

“The World’s End” is about five men who return to their hometown to finish The Golden Mile, a twelve-pub crawl requiring a drink at each location, ending at The World’s End. Gary is the man-child of the group who has managed to not grow up since high school in 1990. His pals, Andy, Steve, Oliver and Peter, are drug along on Gary’s quest to finish the crawl, despite the robot invasion of their hometown.

The pairing of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is always one guaranteed for laughs, and a bit of a brainteaser. Despite their drunkard and childish behavior, the pair keeps the audience on their toes with witty comebacks and snaps at each other. Martin Freeman, a much larger name now than he was when “Shaun of the Dead” premiered, plays the straight man to the devolving gang, attempting to keep them on course.

The reason this movie works so well, between the cast and the effects, is the commentary it provides on the abused science fiction genre and its underlying deity and Peter Pan commentary. The robots aren’t here to invade, they are here to guide, which is why technology has advanced so quickly in the last decade, and human free will has become at the mercy of handheld devices.

Gary is the epitome of the Peter Pan complex He refuses to grow up, even wearing the same clothes as he did at 18, because his youth was the peak of his life. If he accepts he’s pushing forty, then the fun has to eventually end, which is an outlook of the upcoming generation, that of fun before work and much else.

Edgar Wright, Pegg and Frost neatly wrapped up their trilogy with this heartfelt, hilarious and pointed entry. It’s a coming of age story, if a bit late for Gary, and its surprise ending shows us just how we might behave should our gadgets die out on us.

The film also stars Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine, Rosamund Pike, Pierce Brosnan and Bill Nighy.

I’m giving this movie a whole-hearted A. Innuendo and cursing aside, the movie is fun, the violence played up for laughs rather than serious, and smart for being a final entry to the summer movie season. It is rated R for language, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from seeing this movie.