The World’s End is a movie of several stories. Like the other two films Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have done, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the basic themes of friendship and the “world is full of mindless-automatons” are revisited. They do them well.
The World’s End is a movie of several stories. Like the other two films Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have done, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the basic themes of friendship and the “world is full of mindless-automatons” are revisited. They do them well.
As Wright and Pegg get older; we, as movie goers, get to watch the flip book of the aging process. So, in this film, we get a mid-life crisis tale as well. Are we all doomed to grow up and become the mindless automatons that we loathe? There is funny dialogue and lots of good fight scenes as we find out the secret of the ol’ hometown. We muse about friendship, standardization, and aging as the plot thickens.
Wright and Pegg write dark, silly, adolescent moral tomes for the simple man. I am just such a man, trapped in a simple woman’s body, so I liked it. There. The rest of this is spoiler-y. Because the thing I call the “b plot” (not accurate and will be explained) is full on fucked.
There is always, for me, a secondary social message in every movie. I call it the “b plot.” It isn’t a plot… it’s more of a secret socio-political message in a movie. My best examples are, “keep abortion legal” in Dirty Dancing, “Censorship is bad” in Footloose, or Blue Crush’s “only through corporate sponsorship is true happiness found.” The social message of this movie is crazy. I sat there in shock. The real question being addressed here seems to be; how low does Gary King’s (Simon Pegg) “bottom” have to be to make him stop drinking?
Gary King (Pegg) can’t quit drinking because he’s fucking up his life, bumming out his mother, ruining his friendships, or do any kind of work. These are not reason enough to stop drinking or doing drugs. The only way for Gary King to stop drinking is if he is acknowledged as the most important person on the planet. Only by, single-handedly, negatively affecting every one of seven billion people on the planet does he realize that he is a precious mess.
It’s a genuinely fantastic tale of arrogance and ego. It’s L. Ron Hubbard’s sequel to that AA book. An extraordinary day-dream of what it takes to make you think there might be life after giant piles of booze and drugs. Heh.
I told you this gets spoilery… here’s the paragraph to avoid. The sober friend drinks. You probably knew he would. Wasn’t it Chekhov who said, “Never introduce a sober guy into the plot if he isn’t going to drink?” All of the friends are full of rage. Rage at their mid-life lives, rage at Gary, rage at their hometown… the Nick Frost character Andy Knightley is mad enough to snap without drinking, but they have him snap by drinking. For me that feels like it was written by someone who hasn’t snapped enough without drinking. But that’s me. I have my own rage issues. That seems a good place to let you go. Take care out there.
Jackie Kashian