The World’s End
Blu-ray l DVD l Instant l Trilogy
DIRECTOR: Edgar Wright
WRITERS: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
STARRING: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike
Universal Pictures
RELEASE DATE: November 19, 2013

There aren’t many words that could effectively describe my level of excitement for The World’s End, the latest movie from director Edgar Wright featuring the tag team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The movie completes the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy, also known as the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, which began in 2004 with zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead (one of my all-time favorites) and continued with another favorite, 2007’s Hot Fuzz.

The movie follows Gary King (Pegg), a man who’s had trouble with the whole “life” thing and growing up since his high school days. When younger King and his friends—Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), Oliver “O-Man” Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), and Peter Page (Eddie Marsan)—attempted the Golden Mile, a 12-pub, 12-pint quest, but were unable to complete it. Now, 20 years later, he’s on a mission to reunite his friends and complete the task they failed two decades earlier. This is not an easy thing to accomplish as his friends all think rather poorly of King, but he finds a way to make it happen. The reunion goes somewhat smoothly for a bit (as smoothly as they could hope for, anyway), but a random encounter in one of the pubs uncovers some very strange happenings in the town of Newton Haven, and forces the friends to figure out what it is…and also how to get the hell out of there.

For those who are not familiar with the Blood and Ice Cream/Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, it happened basically by accident. Wright happened to be big fan of the ice cream treat, using it as a hangover cure in college, and added it to a scene in Shaun of the Dead never expecting the movie to take off as it did. It’s now one of the best zombie movies ever made, and was eventually followed by Hot Fuzz, an action comedy involving police. So they decided to have the ice cream in a scene in that movie as well. There was no turning back after that, it was officially a thing. So The World’s End of course had to keep the trend going, though I won’t spoil how it shows up. If you’re a fan of the previous movies, it’ll put a smile on your face for sure.

The movie is a ton of fun, as everyone who’s been looking forward to it for the past handful of years expected. The thing about that is usually sky-high expectations are met with great disappointment. Not a chance. Wright, Pegg, Frost, and everyone else put their best efforts into making it as good as it could be, and that’s greatly appreciated. It’s a fairly quick, fast-paced comedy that quickly unravels into sci-fi chaos. And in the most entertaining of ways. The entire cast offers strong performances, laced with often dry or sarcastic lines of humorous dialogue delivered with perfect comic timing

The special effects are also top-notch, as well. When the aforementioned strange things began happening I was impressed with mixture of practical and digital effects that went into making the mysterious robot “Blanks” and their inky blue interiors. Another perfect example of the best way to use digital effects in movies: by using them as an accentuation of practical effects.

In making this movie, an awesomely simple drinking game was also created that puts this flick directly up there among the best movies to drink heavily to with your closest friends. The Golden Mile involves drinking 12 pints of beer at 12 different pubs, so why not have a pint at each location with them?! This is something the group of friends would do over the course of a few hours, walking the town and such. You have 90 minutes. Give or take, cutting the time it takes for them to get to the first pub and end credits and such. Good luck! And no driving anywhere after! Have fun, don’t be an idiot.

The World’s End is about as good a trilogy-maker as I could have hoped and dreamed for. It’s fun, it’s funny, and it will be a joy to watch over and over again with the other two movies. If this is in fact the last of these types of movies, it’s hard to ask for anything more. That said, I personally would trade in Scott Pilgrim, Ant-Man, Paul (all movies I like or am very much looking forward to), and other movies like those just to keep getting these genre mashups from Wright, Pegg, and Frost. You know, so long as they could still make all of the money they’re making for the bigger movies. A steep price to pay, absolutely, but I just love them so. Don’t hate! It’s crazy to think they won’t work together again multiple times down the road on different projects, but the thought of this being the end of these specific types of collaborations? That’s a bit too depressing to think about, and I may require a pint or two.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Loads of great special features to enjoy on this one!

Completing The Golden Mile: The Making of The World’s End — A two-part 48-minute bonus feature looking at all that went into make the movie.

Director At Work — A quickie featurette with cast and crew talking about the talents of director Edgar Wright.

Pegg & Frost = Fried Gold — Another short one looking at the various efforts off Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as a tag team, and why they’re just so damn perfect working together.

Friends Reunited — Short featurette discussing the group of friends in The World’s End, and the difference between who they were back in the day and who they are in the here and now.

Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy — A look at how the trilogy came into existence.

Filling in the Blanks: The Stunts and FX of The World’s End — A nearly 28-minute bonus feature exploring what went into the stunts and fight choreography—including the work of Damien Walters, who, if you’ve never heard of him (as I hadn’t), should check out this, this, and more of his work here; the man does insane things with his body—and the excellent mixture of practical and digital special effects mentioned above.

Animatics — Some of the film’s scenes in storyboard form.

Hair and Make-Up Tests — The actors, in hair and make-up and the costumes they wear during the movie, taking turns doing random things in front of the camera alone, and set to pretty music!

Rehearsal Footage — Footage of various rehearsal sessions, from fights to stunts to drunk walking down the street after certain levels of pints consumed.

Stunt Tapes — A trio of featurettes looking at the stunt work that went into three scenes from the movie.

VFX Breakdown — Another excellent look at the different physical and computer-generated visual effects that were combined for various special effects shots.

Bits & Pieces — Multiple takes of various scenes in the movie, and the cheering of landmark slates.

There’s Only One Gary King: Osymyso’s Inibri-8 Megamix — A collection of quick cuts of lines from the movie—mainly Pegg’s Gary King character—set to music.

Signs & Omens — Some of the little hidden gems you might have missed, such as the symbolism of each of the 12 pubs, the mysterious marking hidden throughout the movie, and so on.

Edgar & Simon’s Flip Chart — Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg look over their notes before the screenplay was completed to see how much ended up in the final film and what was changed.

TV Safe Version — Some of the scenes with naughty language dubbed over will silly words to make it safe for TV airing.

Trivia Track — Turn this on for some pop up video-type fun facts while you watch the movie a second or third or 100th time.

Also to be enjoyed: Outtakes, Trailers, Deleted Scenes, Alternate Edits, TV Spots, Galleries, and Commentaries.

Trailer