Barmageddon

Any movie that cribs its dialogue from the Primal Scream song Loaded (“Just what is it that you want to do?” “We wanna be free… we wanna be free to do what we wanna do, and we wanna get loaded! And we wanna have a good time… And that’s what we’re gonna do…”) is okay in my book. Especially when it’s directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), co-written by Simon Pegg and stars his partner in sloth, Nick Frost.

The World’s End has a few more bows in its quiver: it’s the third in Wright’s “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy,” so expect to see a Cornetto ice cream wrapper fluttering around somewhere in the post-apocalyptic breeze (it’s the last in the trilogy); it also features Martin Freeman, Bond Girl Rosamund Pike, Paddy Considine and, of course, Bill Nighy.

And it also has one of the funniest end-of-the-world setups ever: a bunch of guys trying to recreate their ‘90s youthful excesses by reattempting the “Golden Mile” — a fictional stretch of 12 pubs in a small English town where they once vowed to down 12 pints in a row, and failed.

The fact that they only managed nine pints before surrendering to vomit, physical damage and uncomfortable sleep has not sat well over the years with Gary King (Pegg), a onetime rocker wannabe who remembers his drunken youth a little too fondly: he’s a middle-aged alcoholic in the opening montage. Sitting in an AA meeting, he relives his attempted glories in his hometown of Newtown Haven. But the retelling doesn’t help him with the 12 steps; rather it makes him more resolved to take all 12 steps of the Golden Mile all over again. Recruiting his old mates (Freeman, Frost, Considine and Eddie Marsan), the gang heads back to their hometown and starts at The First Post, where they quickly realize two things: 1) 20 years later, nobody from Newtown Haven remembers who they are, and 2) every pub in England now looks exactly the same. It’s as though the world has been “Starbucked,” notes mate Steven Prince (Considine).

This is director Wright’s primary theme, one he’s developed in both Shaun of the Dead (people are already zombies in England, you just never notice it) and Hot Fuzz (people in small English towns are not really tidy, quiet and law-abiding; they’re actually part of a murderous cult that gets rid of troublemakers). Teaming his usual duo of Pegg and Frost, The World’s End takes an old script idea of Wright’s about a pub crawl and makes it about the last pint on earth — or, as the ads put it, “barmageddon.” The apocalypse as pub crawl is a genius stroke, taking our anti-heroes further along through The Old Familiar, The Famous Cock, The Cross Hands, The Good Companions, The Trusty Servant, The Two-Headed Dog, The Mermaid, The Beehive, The King’s Head, The Hole in the Wall and ending up, naturally enough, at The World’s End. (That these generic-sounding English pub names have a ring of fakey authenticity to them is part of Wright’s point about Starbucking.)

Of course, things go awry. Gary is obnoxious, not to mention stupid, and so far from success next to his mates that a mutiny quickly stirs. Then things turn really strange when a gang of blank-faced youths attacks Gary and his pals in a pub men’s room. The martial arts blitz that follows ends in a pile of dismembered body parts spouting, er, blue blood. You know you can’t go home again after that.

The mates quickly learn that an alien invasion by an intergalactic cleanup crew called The Network is readying Earth for a grande Starbucking. How The World’s End mutates from existential thesis about whether to let go of your past into a dust-up with blue-blooded aliens is a matter of viewer taste; it certainly takes the story in a different direction, much as Seth Rogen’s This is the End veered sharply into Exorcist parodies and giant black demons raping Jonah Hill. Perhaps Wright and his gang were drinking instead of toking, but the results are roughly the same: a leap into the great Hollywood Special Effects Ending.

What saves The World’s End is the rapid-fire repartee between Pegg and his mates. Wright also has one of the fastest editing styles in English film: you have to rewind a lot to catch some of the funnier lines. Another plus: as the true nature of Newtown Haven’s transformation becomes clearer, our heroes become drunker, slurring their speech, falling over a lot, and yet moving relentlessly from pub to pub, determined to finish the Golden Mile. Or at least Gary is.

Of course, Wright has to land this vehicle somewhere safely on the marker of “male friendship and its importance,” as he did with his previous Cornetto epics. The pissed-up mates learn to accept one another’s flaws and even raise a toast to the epic stupidity of mankind in the process.

THE NETWORK: You are children and you require guidance. There is no room for imperfection.

GARY: I think you bit off more than you can chew, mate.

ANDREW: Yeah, because we’re more belligerent, more stubborn and more idiotic than you could ever imagine.

The film features an excellent “Madchester” soundtrack, including, naturally, the Primal Scream number, but also tracks by The Charlatans, Stone Roses, 808 State, Blur, Beautiful South, Suede and Teenage Fanclub. It may persuade you to attempt your own pub crawl, or at the very least stage a drinking game in which everyone takes a shot whenever Gary King utters the phrase “World’s End.” (Bonus challenge: Take a drink whenever someone onscreen takes one. Oh, and don’t forget: Drink responsibly.)