First Hit: Although funny at times, it wore on me and, in the end, didn’t quite work.
The film starts our rather drudgingly with Gary King (Simon Pegg) in some sort of support group telling a story that gets no intelligent discernible feedback from other members of the group.
Next thing you know, he’s recruiting his old friends to take a trip back to village where then stopped a tour of 12 Pubs some twenty years earlier. He wants them to finish the tour, like it will make his life different. King is manipulative and in a way that made me groan. Anyone falling for is stupid arguments for going deserved what they got.
Regardless of the quote un quote friendship that may have existed, there is really nothing that binds this group together. However, without this piece there would be no film, so… His friends in this caper are Steven (Paddy Considine), Andy (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan), and Oliver (Martin Freeman).
The banter (writing) between the blokes, at times was laugh-out-loud outstanding, but in between the improbable plot and outcome put a dark (forget it) cloud over the entire film. It is like some of the bits were great, but the whole was left wanting.
The epilogue, sort of speak, did not help the cause of the film and therefore the ending was – “The World’s End”.
Pegg was funny at times but his character wore on me and I would have been rid of him early if I were one of his blokes. Considine, Frost, Marsan, and Freeman were all solid in their roles and upheld the story line very well. Pegg and Edgar Wright wrote the improbably script while Wright did a reasonable job as director tying it all together.
Overall: Not much to enjoy except the funny bits which come few and far between.