By Amanda Ack, Film Critic
The World’s End is quite possibly the best comedy of the year so far. It is also the saddest. Directed by Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz helmer Edgar Wright, it’s got razor-sharp wit and sight gags in spades, but it never shies away from going darker and digging deeper.
The film stars Simon Pegg as “Gary King,” a greasy man-child who seeks out his old friends (played by Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, and Eddie Marsan) in an effort to take another crack at the group’s epic but unsuccessful pub crawl from over two decades ago. As the five men make their way from bar to bar, however, they discover that remembering the past is secondary to protecting the future – not for themselves, but for the entire human race.
On the surface, it’s a typically brilliant Wright film, with lightning-fast humor and slapstick silliness galore. What makes it a bit different than his previous filmmaking ventures, however, is that it’s just as emotionally affecting as it is funny. It may not have quite as much stylish snap as Hot Fuzz, but it’s got more than enough warmth and wisdom to make up for it.
Simon Pegg is, of course, the star of the show, delivering a performance that is by turns manically funny and painfully tragic. His Gary King is a man in the throes of a midlife crisis brought on by never growing up, and the film’s best moments happen when his cocky, swaggering veneer is chipped away, revealing the raw vulnerability underneath.
The rest of the cast delivers in a similar fashion. All brilliant actors in their own right, they work together beautifully, settling in to the breakneck dialogue and playing off each other with ease.
The World’s End is a thoroughly satisfying cinematic experience, hitting all the right comedic notes and tugging all the right heartstrings. Wright and company have outdone themselves.
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