This Is The End
I was very pleasantly surprised by this one as I have tried to keep as much distance between myself and gross-out, stoner comedy (so really any Hollywood comedies) for the last decade or so. Despite vague memories of the last 'apocalypse comedy' I saw being the horrific Little Nicky (I think that was the film that actually made me decide to stay away from Hollywood comedies!), I was interested enough in the premise of This Is The End to give it a try. What I got was a gross-out stoner comedy, but mercifully without Adam Sandler, so it was far better! The film is also exposing an entire modern comedy-film social network of actors that I was vaguely aware of but had previously not really been following at all, from the Apatow actors, through the David Gordon Green epics to films like The Sitter and 21 Jump Street, so my comments should be taken with the pinch of salt that I barely know who any of the actors in the film are! (Really even Emma Watson, as I've only fully watched the first Harry Potter, despite catching snippets of the rest on television!)
The film also appealed to my fascination with single location (almost entirely one location here), claustrophobic, barricaded-against-the-outside world films that lead to characters arguing with one another. I'd much rather see a group of late 20s-early 30s bickering about bigger issues of religion (kind of) and working together for a shared goal than how they are inevitably going to end up with the impossibly beautiful girl (who breezes in and straight out again of the film whilst wielding an axe here!). I can forgive the inevitable drugs section that it seems mandatory for these films to have (fitting in with all of the meta-jokes about Your Highness and Pineapple Express - speaking of which I haven't seen the original, so I assume that the Pineapple Express 2 'swede-ing' is a fantastic deconstruction of the intricate themes of the original!), but I do like that the Milky Way bar becomes a much more precious commodity!
The thing that I liked most about the film was despite all the antics there was a very generous approach on show towards giving all of the main six characters their moments to shine, and especially that the most gross-out moments were often the funniest (especially the James Franco and Danny McBride argument over reckless onanism, which leads to the hilariously insincere make-up scene - if the Devil incarnate wasn't actually a character in the film, I'd probably say that McBride is trying to play that role, arriving in a puff of smoke, selfishly manipulating everyone and turning out to be pretty well suited to the new world order) tying it into character bits rather than just expecting the shock value to do all the work. I also like that the film neatly underplays all of their individual character flaws rather than heavily underlining them, until those flaws become key to the plot later on (the early scene of Seth's cowardice which first gets shown when he runs indoors whilst Jay is hanging on the side of the pit, or Jay's friendship issues for example).
Much of the broad character humour is saved for the early pre-apocalypse section of the film with the cameos from various big names (although one cameo is squirrelled away for later!) with the (totally untrue I'm sure) characterisation of Michael Cera and the seemingly perennially unlucky Rihanna flying through the scene, and a supporting cast of familiar TV comedy actors getting used en masse as disaster victim 'Special Guest Star' fodder! And I love the completely incongruous pop songs that crop up at the strangest possible moments!
My one issue with the film is that it moves a little too easily into providing a get out clause for our heroes. But at the same time it does let the film end on a joyous note!
I'll end with a few of the film-related moments that made me laugh:
The 'hipster-versus-Forrest Gump' moment that ends with the most heartbroken recitation of "You never know what you're gonna get!" that I've ever heard!
The Terminator 2 in-joke as a pair of characters pass a child's playground in flames and one guy comments on its poignancy.
And I have to single out Jonah Hill's great character arc in which after praying to God ("Hi, it's me Jonah Hill, from Moneyball") for a favour, he gets to replay in a surprisingly sensitive manner the "this is no dream, this is really happening!" scene from Rosemary's Baby and then fluidly move from paying tribute to Mia Farrow, through Linda Blair in The Exorcist into Ellen Sandweiss from The Evil Dead in just a couple of scenes! If Hill wins the Best Supporting Actor for Wolf of Wall Street, I'll be hoping in some small way that the versatility on display in This Is The End played its part in the award!
