STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM “The World’s End”
When the world is about to come to an end, sometimes the way to deal with it is with a good pint.
Directed by Edgar Wright, and written by Simon Pegg & Wright, The World’s End is the story of five friends who reunite and return to their hometown to, at the behest of Gary, the obnoxious friend who convinced them to do the trip, complete a pub crawl they were unable to complete when they were teenagers.
As they get closer, they slowly realize that something’s a little off about the people around them. It turns out that a majority of the population has been replaced by androids.
Gary convinces everyone to stay and continue the pub crawl so as to not raise suspicions that they are onto everyone. Everyone disagrees at first, but they do follow his lead.
The film’s plot takes place throughout one whole day. Being that it’s Edgar Wright, there are lots of things to pay attention to, both visual and through its fast-paced dialogue. It’s one thing to be making references to other films, and make no mistake, they are some; it’s another to be referencing your own plot and giving away some key plot points without you knowing it.
One thing that the film shows that not a lot of alien invasion films (which is how they portray the robot invasion) have is fight scenes. When the first fight scene starts, you’d expect maybe some tackling and flailing, especially since they are starting to get drunk. But everyone is pretty limber, able to jump around and pull off some moves that come out of a martial arts film.
The characters presence in the town is fueled by a sense of emptiness every one of the guys has. As much as they don’t like to admit it, Gary did push them to break out of their mundane/depressing life, even if it did lead to an invasion, though that was going to happen regardless.
It was hard not to be aware of this film since it is the third film of what Wright calls the Cornetto Trilogy, the previous films being Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. The only thing in common the three films have is the writing/directing team, and some of the cast.
The World’s End has a little bit of everything. It’s sci-fi, it’s horror, it’s extremely funny, sometime dark. It’s a film that could be understood no matter what language or culture. Ultimately, it’s a chase film. What’s so hard to understand about that?
Start your crawl, and check it out.
