Cinema Review - The World's End (15, 109 Mins)

Synopsis: Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind's only hope for survival.

Verdict: it doesn't necessarily cover any new ground there is plenty of humour here along with some great action to make it one of the better films of this summer.

Starting off as a slow burner there wasn't really a lot going on for the first 30 minutes or so other than introducing characters. Whilst this means that it takes time before The World's End gets going, an excellent screenplay results in much greater character development than many other recent comedies (although I liked I Give It A Year, just showing that a character doesn't like compacting rubbish in the bin does not make her evolved or relatable). Therefore whilst many jokes are made at the mental fragility of Simon Pegg's central character you feel almost heartbroken for him at points when you see how hard life has been for him. Plot threads like this helped to make for a very well-rounded film, more so than audiences may have initially been expecting from a film about an alien invasion in pubs. 

The cast here is as excellent as the other instalments in the Cornetto trilogy. Nick Frost has surprisingly more to work with as the story progresses than in his other roles where he was more of a bashful assistant. As a result I'd regard this as one of his best performances to date. Rosamund Pike also pleasantly surprised with good comic timing. Given I'd only really seen her before in action movies like Jack Reacher I wasn't sure how she'd bear up against such comedic talent but she really held her own. The rest of the cast were also great and several cameos from other famous faces worked well too.

One of the only flaws with this was probably mis-marketing due to the fact that it was billed as a comedy. Whilst this definitely did have some funny moments, was it as witty and gag-filled as Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz? No. In my opinion it came off as more of an action movie with several brilliantly choreographed fight scenes - Edgar Wright clearly learned a lot from directing Scott Pilgrim. Many of the laughs and running gags were more chuckle worthy than laugh out loud funny.

Whilst it may not be quite as strong as the first two films, The World's End is still definitely a fitting end to the trilogy with plenty of nods back to them throughout making it a must see for any fans of Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz.

4/5