An after-world party at Franco’s house

Any movie that starts off with actor Michael Cera playing himself, snorting coke off a dining room table in James Franco’s house and slapping Rihanna’s ass, has got major gonads — twisted though they may be.

How about an apocalypse comedy starring most of the Judd Apatow crew wherein Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride and Jay Baruchel all play some version of themselves, trying to survive in what looks like the end of the world?

That would be the Rogen-directed This is the End, which might not put a stop to all the end-of-times movies out there, but could just help you get a few laughs in before the apocalypse actually does arrive.

The title — Jim Morrison’s crooned reminder in The End comes to mind — refers to a major world meltdown that seems to focus mainly on Hollywood, and the movie follows Rogen and his Canadian pal Baruchel (best known as “Jay” in Knocked Up and as the director of the underrated hockey flick, Goon) as they reconnect in LA. Jay hates Los Angeles, but agrees to stay at Seth’s house; they attend a party at Franco’s fortress-like actor’s crib, where everyone’s drinking, doing drugs and having sex, and before you know it, weird stuff commences: a major earthquake rocks the city, and Jay sees blue beams of light sucking people up into the sky. Aliens? No, it’s the Biblical rapture. That means the “good” people are going up to heaven; the rest of the shmoes and a-holes are sitting around, wondering what they did wrong.

The big joke is, nobody at Franco’s house even notices the rapture’s taking place. They’re too busy being shallow and Los Angelized to pay attention to anything outside their own skins.

Before it unravels into silliness, the script (by Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg) plays it really sharp, in that postmodern, throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks way. It’s funnier than Pineapple Express and Your Highness, but mostly because it recognizes how silly and lucky the people who made those pot comedies really are. The script is rife with in-jokes, directed squarely at its own stars. Everything about Franco’s life is up for laughs; Rogen’s too; ditto Hill, who comes across as Zen and condescending, especially to Jay. (Jokes are made about Hill’s massive ego: at one point he prays to God: “God, it’s me. Jonah Hill. From Moneyball.”)

McBride, as always, is the wild card of the bunch: the one who shows up after the apocalypse has begun, and proceeds to eat most of their food and use their water supply to wash his feet — basically how you imagine Danny McBride would actually be in real life.

Craig Robinson (too many Apatow projects to mention, but best known as the doorman in Knocked Up who apologizes to Leslie Mann for not letting her “old ass” in the dance club) is the big black dude with a little more heart than the others — or at least he realizes what a douche he’s been most of his life.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin’ to those who have seen Superbad) turns up briefly, freaking out when Cera blows a handful of cocaine in his face. “I’ve never done this drug before!” he whimpers. “I’ll walk you through it,” cackles Cera.

Other cameos include a grown-up and Hollywood-wise Emma Watson, who chides Jay for not liking Los Angeles. (“What are you, a hipster?”) Then she seeks shelter in Franco’s boarded-up house, only to leave  after confiscating all their food and water when they start making with a “rapey vibe.”

This is a bonkers kind of movie, probably the only one I can think of that owes as much to the Holy Bible as it does to bongwater. Could it be that Rogen has actually contemplated good and evil, heaven and hell, and the possibility that they are real? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean it’s not funny as hell.

In the end, Rogen’s depiction of the after-life is not fundamentally different from the one Warren Beatty encounters in Heaven Can Wait — with the addition of weed, chicks dancing in white bikinis, and the Backstreet Boys busting moves.

In truth, the script abandons whatever darker intentions it first lays out in the opening scenes. It dares not go where, say, Tom Perrotta’s novel The Leftovers goes, wherein the rapture happens, and the rest of the left behinds just carry on, adjusting to the new environment on Earth, forgetting that it even happened. But who needs to think too much when you have a non-stop stream of pot, urine-drinking and jizz jokes before you?

Being that the dudes are all boarded up in a house, there are plentiful references to other under-siege movies: Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby — even Franco’s 127 Hours. And where else are you going to see Danny McBride playing a cannibal? With Channing Tatum — playing himself — as his leather-wearing housebitch? It’s that kind of a movie.

There’s been a spate of post-apocalyptic movies in the past few years, most of them dreary big-budget sci-fi epics that drone on about how crappy the future is, and how horrible Armageddon is gonna be. This is the End takes a lighter view of end times, positing that, when the final crap hits the fan, stoners will still be stoners, a-holes will be a-holes, and Jonah Hill will probably be possessed by demons.