Director Edgar Wright reunites with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for this Sci-Fi themed comedy.
Gary King (Pegg), a 40-year-old man obsessed with his youth and the expected fulfilment which adulthood has failed to deliver, persuades four childhood friends to return home to complete a pub crawl and finally reach the fabled World’s End bar.
Once home they discover all’s not what it seems – Newton Haven has apparently been twinned with Stepford and it falls to our five middle-aged Inbetweeners to overcome past slights, competing desires for women and long-festering jealousies to save mankind.
Packed with laughs – including plenty of satire at the expense of identikit bar chains – The World’s End is probably the best of the trio’s films and neatly completes the set on an unquestioned high.
The five leads – Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan complete the the school gang – offer the right mix of warmth and disinterest for a group of adults who are no longer the close friends they once were.
But this film isn’t quite the ensemble piece it first appears. Pegg’s King overshadows all other characters and while Frost turns in a dignified second lead performance as Andy, cast-mates Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan have little to do beyond make up the numbers.
Grumbles aside, Wright neatly guides the film between biting satire and action scenes and builds the pace until delivering a finale which is both hilarious and poignant.
In cinemas July 19th
