Back with another review for you much sooner than anticipated because the PlayStation 4 that held the promise of sucking my life away (un)fortunately broke on day 1. So with all this time freed up for me here’s my review of this Summers comedy, This Is the End.
22/09/13
26/07/13
This Is the End was intermittently outright hilarious but suffered though occasional patches of monotony and dullness. The gimmick in play with this particular Seth Rogen led comedy is that the actors are playing themselves, some have what we imagine would be personalities similar to their real life counterparts and others deviate entirely causing some brilliantly funny creations. Shit hits the fan after Jay Baruchel tags along with Rogen to a house warming party at James Franco’s new place, namely the apocalypse goes down and people are being raptured up to Heaven left, right and centre.
One spectacular instance of someone playing a version of themselves unlike their true persona was Michael Cera, acting as a coked off his face, orgy partaking and general bastard Michael Cera. It played perfectly off audience expectations and was a really memorable, yet thankfully brief, performance. So essentially, through a process of speedy elimination, it gets whittled down to just Franco, Jonah Hill, Rogen, Baruchel and Craig Robinson all in James Franco’s house trying to make sense of what’s happening while also trying to survive. Then out of nowhere Danny McBride rocks up and has you laughing so hard you cheeks will hurt. Now it’s just a bunch of funny guys fucking with each other like a group of close friends hanging out, which it pretty much what it is since a lot of the movie has an ad libbed feel to it and this is one of the movies strengths delivering tons of funny lines but also it starts to feel a little too unstructured and for long parts there isn’t much happening.
The shenanigans don’t go on for very long with the apocalypse outside making its way inside, although they did have time to film a make-shift sequel to Pineapple Express which was simply indescribably, all I know is that I want to see more of Jonah Hill as Woody Harrelson and I would be willing to pay for it. Forced out of the house the movie picks back up after a 20 minutes slump and they’re running for their lives, with enough time for a few more cameos up pops Channing Tatum in a brilliant turn as Danny McBride’s bitch.
The laughs are in abundance here but condensed in to extended periods but lull in between is still entertaining and the fact that, what I image to be, a decent amount of money was invested in a huge CGI Satan with a giant dick tells you what kind of movie you’re in for.
7.6 out of 10. Fans of Pineapple Express and Superbad, such as myself, pretty much have to watch this movie and while it doesn’t match the overall level of those films there are individual moments of sheer hilarity that make it worth it.
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