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The Worlds End movie

Snick27

Snick27

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
Just got back from watch the Worlds End and wondering if anyone else has too?

I don't see anything thread about this movie but if there is and I missed it then please merge.

"20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them becomes hellbent on trying the drinking marathon again. They are convinced to stage an encore by Gary King, a 40-year-old man trapped at the cigarette end of his teens, who drags his reluctant pals to their hometown and once again attempts to reach the fabled pub - The World's End. As they attempt to reconcile the past and present, they realize the real struggle is for the future, not just theirs but humankind's. Reaching The World's End is the least of their worries."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n__1Y-N5tQk
 
Crappy cop-out ending that undercut the emotional threads that drove the film.

Shame really, as I really loved it up until the climax. It was like the final words of The Network were coming directly from the writers.
 
I was wondering where the thread for this film was. I really enjoyed it. An effective SF comedy that, like the best SF comedies, works as an SF story in its own right rather than just using SF trappings as the butt of jokes.


Venardhi said:
Crappy cop-out ending that undercut the emotional threads that drove the film.
Click to expand...

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. That ending arose directly from the emotional arc of the film.
It was an allegory for Gary's emotional growth when he finally stopped living as a child (i.e. the elders who'd been sheltering/guiding us finally left us to our own devices). Going out into the world can be turbulent, leaving you without your familiar support structures, and it can be a struggle to build a new life, but the effort can bring you new maturity. Gary clung to the past because he was afraid of facing adult life, and the nicely subversive thing is that he was right to fear it, that it wasn't all hunky-dory to grow up and take responsibility like it'd be in a more simplistic allegory, but facing that hardship still made him a better man.

Besides, in a movie called The World's End, it would've been more of a copout if the world as we know it hadn't ended, don't you think? Gary's goal from the start was to reach The World's End, and he pretty much got what he wanted. So far from a copout, it's a direct payoff to what was set up from the very beginning. And yet at the same time it's a payoff we never saw coming. Which is very, very clever.

(And I really loved the brilliant callback to the "ordering water" discussion -- the way it initially seemed like just a bit of character comedy but then had this awesome symbolism at the end.)
 
Hot Fuzz > World's End > Shaun Dead

You can really see how Wright's fight scene choreography has improved after making Scott Pilgrim. The fight scenes were quite impressive with different fights in the foreground and background.
 
I thought it had it's moments, and I liked it a lot more than Hot Fuzz, but ultimately it still didn't feel nearly as inspired as Shaun of the Dead.

I do agree the movie's themes and characters were well thought out though. And Pegg did a good job playing a character who was fun while also being quite sad and pathetic at the same time.
 
Domestic: $23,986,000 58.7%
+ Foreign: $16,900,000 41.3%
=Worldwide: $40,886,000

Production Budget: $20 million

Ending part with Gary in the bars with his new gang made me feel Gary didn't grow up and was still trying to live in the past.

Movie was very funny and to me a lot better than any of the Hangover movies.
Shame more people don't go see this, as on a Saturday night only 4 other people where in the theater and a older couple was there too but walked out about 15 mins into the movie.
 
Snick27 said:
Ending part with Gary in the bars with his new gang made me feel Gary didn't grow up and was still trying to live in the past.
Click to expand...
Here's an excerpt from a Pegg approved analysis that I found interesting:
For one thing he’s sober, and ordering water in a bar full of big guys in war paint shows that he has come around to Andy’s way of thinking way back at The First Post. That’s a big step. But the bigger step is his friendship with the blank versions of his friends. Some people have been confused by this - isn’t Gary still living in the past? The reality is that Gary’s fixation on 1990 wasn’t the problem, it was a symptom. There’s nothing inherently wrong with still listening to the same music from your best years. Gary’s problem wasn’t that he was living in the past, he was looking to the past as an escape from responsibility. The source of his schism with Andy wasn’t the accident, it was the fact that Gary ran away when Andy needed him the most. It was his total rejection of responsibility, the way he can never be wrong. Throughout the movie Gary is not there for his friends, whether it be ignoring Peter during his speech about the bully or running away to the next pub at the end. In the final moments of the film Gary King has grown into the leader that he always fancied himself to be because he finally understands that he needs to stick with his friends.

Ordering that water is a big deal. Fighting for his friends - that’s the true measure of Gary’s growth. What I really like about this is that Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have eschewed a cookie cutter idea of responsibilty and maturation. Gary doesn’t have to settle down and have a family like Pete and Andy, he doesn’t need to excel in business like O-Man, and he doesn’t need to discover true love and live small like Steve. There are many ways to live your life, The World’s End says, and the important thing is how you live that life.

Why the blanks, though? On one level yes, they represent Gary’s friends from a better time. But in a larger sense they represent taking responsibility for his actions. Gary didn’t just send the world back to the Dark Ages, he has stranded these not-quite-robots in a world that doesn’t want them. He can’t fix the world, and he can’t save all the blanks, but he can take responsibility for this group in a way that he never could with his real friends. He got them into this situation, and he’s going to stick with them until the end.

And so all of that - the robots and The Network and the apocalyptic finale - speak to the humanity at the heart of The World’s End. The movie rejects the Disneyfication of Times Square, but it also acknowledges that the seedier version of that intersection had lots of problems. It’s hopeful in its own way, as it’s saying that even when you are at your worst - even when you’ve hit alcoholic rock bottom - you can still wake up in the morning and make the best of it. It’s not the most sweepingly romantic concept of all time, but it’s real and it’s true. Gary King is 40 years old and this is the world he’s made. Now he’s going to live in it the best man he can be.
Click to expand...
Full article.
 
^I agree completely with that analysis. Sure, on the surface, Gary was still going to bars with his friends, but the meaning of that act was profoundly different. He wasn't doing it to hide from life and indulge his selfish urges, he was doing it to take a stand against bigotry and fight to make the world better for other people. And I love it that the protagonist of the film became a champion for the rights of the villains of the film. The blanks weren't demonized, but were just other people with their own different agendas and goals, and whatever the leadership may have done wrong, the ordinary people still had their rights. It's a lot less simplistic than what you'd get in a lot of films.

And yeah, hanging out with the blanks of his high-school friends is about responsibility. Those blanks exist because they were created for his benefit, as temptations. They're his fantasy of the past brought to life. They exist because of him, and are in a sense his children. So he's taken responsibility for them.
 
I thought the fight scenes were starting to get tedious by the end, but I otherwise really enjoyed it. I know this has been billed as a loose trilogy, but I wouldn't mind at all if Wright, Pegg, and Frost kept getting together every few years to do one of these. They've all been a lot of fun.
 
Harvey said:
I thought the fight scenes were starting to get tedious by the end, but I otherwise really enjoyed it.
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The fights were the main thing that bugged me. One, how did this bunch of suburban schlubs know how to fight like Hong Kong action stars, and two, how did they still have the coordination to fight like that after seven pubs?

Also, the blanks were really fragile. Hard to see how their bodies were meant to be improvements on the human form. Although I guess they were a lot easier to repair.
 
I thought that the fighting sequences were obviously meant to be exaggerated to the point where they forced you to ask how are these people fighting like this? That was probably the point of them.

As for the film...I enjoyed it quite a bit. "Hot Fuzz" is my favourite of the trilogy, but this was very good, and Steven Price's score is excellent.
 
I happened to catch Hot Fuzz on BBC America just a week or two before I saw TWE, but I've only seen Shaun in its entirety once and that was at least a number of months ago. I remember finding it very clever, but I don't like zombie movies much so I doubt it'll ever be a favorite. At some point, though, I am going to want to watch all three in succession.

It's interesting how they're all in different genres, but they all have a common theme (and this is a bit of a spoiler for Hot Fuzz) of the protagonists being surrounded by the enemy, having to fight against the whole community. And although only two of them have paranormal elements, I guess they do all count as horror of one form or another -- supernatural horror for SotD, slasher horror for HF, and science fiction horror for TWE.
 
Snick27 said:
Domestic: $23,986,000 58.7%
+ Foreign: $16,900,000 41.3%
=Worldwide: $40,886,000

Production Budget: $20 million

Ending part with Gary in the bars with his new gang made me feel Gary didn't grow up and was still trying to live in the past.

Movie was very funny and to me a lot better than any of the Hangover movies.
Shame more people don't go see this, as on a Saturday night only 4 other people where in the theater and a older couple was there too but walked out about 15 mins into the movie.
Click to expand...

I couldn't catch it on opening night like I wanted to, so I had to wait a week.THE MOVIE THEATER I FAVOR COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO RUN TWE FOR A FULL WEEK, BUT COULD SHOW THAT F*CKING ONE DIRECTION MOVIE ON 3 SCREENS! Needless to say, I won't be returning to that theater. >.>
 
Snick27 said:
Domestic: $23,986,000 58.7%
+ Foreign: $16,900,000 41.3%
=Worldwide: $40,886,000

Production Budget: $20 million

Ending part with Gary in the bars with his new gang made me feel Gary didn't grow up and was still trying to live in the past.

Movie was very funny and to me a lot better than any of the Hangover movies.
Shame more people don't go see this, as on a Saturday night only 4 other people where in the theater and a older couple was there too but walked out about 15 mins into the movie.
Click to expand...

I saw it in hipsterville (Silverlake, Los Angeles) in a super packed large movie theater that I've never seen sold out before (not even for Avengers). It was an amazing experience...
 
I saw it last night and liked it a lot. My (admittedly quite small) theater was completely sold out and the crowd was clearly having a blast.

Perhaps the greatest thing about The World's End is that its first third, which features just the barest hint of the sci-fi elements, is so brilliant in its nuanced and hilarious portrayal of the movie's protagonists that I wouldn't have minded to just continue watching *that* movie. But that doesn't mean I liked the movie it becomes after the sudden genre shift any less. There are lots of cool visuals, excellent fight and chase scenes, and yet, the brilliantly acted characters and their inner lives never fade into the background. The World's End is a poignant coming of middle age story, an inventive sci-fi yarn, and an utterly hilarious comedy all in one, and can easily stand toe-to-toe with its two Cornetto Trilogy predecessors.

9/10
 
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