This Is the End

I don't know what all the bad reviews are about. I loved the idea of using the actors' real names but creating alternate personalities. The humour is great, and special effects are rather realistic! Also, I particularly loved Michael Cera and Paul Rudd's appearances! Great job to the writers, directors and actors. For me, this was the perfect combination of comedy, horror and sci-fi. There was a sense of doom throughout, especially with the wide shots of LA, which made me feel quite uncomfortable, but then there was plenty of comic relief.

I don't often laugh at movies, but if you're looking for a relaxed, light comedy, I would recommend this film.

Alas, it is the fate of so many comedies - the first half of the movie is great and funny, the second half is 'meh' as the director tries to figure out how to resolve the story lines. I laughed a lot in the first half of this movie - it's so over-the-top and ridiculous that you can't help but laugh. If I were rating the 1st half, I'd give it about a 9/10.

The second half was a different story. Though it had a handful of funny moments, it seemed to drag and was a predictable mess IMO - maybe a 5/10. The first-half comedy was enough to make up for some of that, so I give it a 7/10 overall.

I was actually surprised that it was better than I thought it was going to be. I think too many movie-goers hyped it up in their heads that this movie was going to be the most epic comedy of all time. I went in knowing how dumb it was going to be and found it really funny at parts and I liked the dark comedy eased with more immature slapstick comedy. A lot of these negative reviews I've read either have some kind of religious agenda against this movie or were people trying to measure how big their cinema knowledge penis is by citing great foreign films and comparing how much it falls short. It's a stoner comedy made by stoner nerd's that happened to find success and are probably just as baffled as these harsh critics are as to how they achieved it. In a movie filled with celebrity cameos and over the top CGI and humor, it felt to me like it was still a down to Earth movie they probably spent 30 minutes writing and had a blast filming and getting friends together and showed Hollywood excess from the point of view of the outsiders. If you were offended or wrote this movie off because it wasn't up to your standards, you're not the audience this movie had any intention of appeasing. It's obviously a cult comedy that some will love and most will hate which sometimes are the best comedies. It wasn't quite up there with the writer's and actor's other modern day classics but it was totally enjoyable and worth watching again.

A vanity project for a bunch of Hollywood's highest paid comedic actors, playing themselves in a "stoner comedy". So how do you make that good? By making it an hilarious, smart, insightful, satirical and scathing commentary on religion, celebrity and Los Angeles. And how do you make that successful? By making it a stoner comedy about a hapless group of actors saying and doing the stupidest things.

It actually starts out pretty slowly with a lame story being introduced. Jay Baruchel comes to LA to hang out with his friend Seth Rogen who wants to hang out with his friends James Franco, Jonah Hill and Craig Robinson, but Jay doesn't like his friends and he doesn't think that they like him. Sounds kind of lame doesn't it? The party at James Franco's house delivers the ridiculous, raunchy comedy which the target audience craves but it doesn't yet include the intelligence which the rest of the audience is applauding.

It seems like everybody in Hollywood is at James Franco's house. Michael Cera is doing coke, Jonah Hill is being friendly and everybody else is finding another drug to imbibe. While Jay and Seth are off to buy cigarettes, the Heavens open up and the Earth caves in. And then the real fun begins. Knowing the title of the film, or having read the bible, or really having seen any loose interpretation of the apocalypse, it's pretty obvious what is happening. And we get our first glimpse of the film's take on the celebrity culture and what it does (and what will eventually happen) to those at the center of it.

Our heroes aren't quite sure what's going on. Remember, they are actors in Hollywood. It's probably an earthquake, or it could be a zombie invasion, or it could be the end of the world as described in the New Testament's Revelation. But who believes that stuff?

The majority of the film takes place with our five actors holed up in James Franco's house – which is like a cement cave designed by himself since he's an artist. The jokes are vulgar, crass, silly but also incredibly insightful into who they are and the result is a perfectly written self-parody. You have to get past a lot of penis jokes, but once you do, you'll find an under-current tackling the issues of celebrity status but also of celebrities' biggest detractors, the religious congregation. I don't think "This Is the End" will be successfully duplicated any time soon, but I also don't foresee the apocalypse hitting any time soon.

I'm pretty sure everyone has their own vision of how the world is going to end. Biblical Apocalypse? Nuclear war? Hit of a meteor? No matter how, the way of surviving it in 'This is the End' is by far the best I've seen on-screen.

The concept of the movie is rather simple - have a bunch of celebrities fighting for their life during the Apocalypse. It starts off rather inconspicuously - Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogen after spending a day on smoking weed and playing video games head to party at James Franco's new mansion. There are way too many cameos to include all of them in this review, but the most memorable ones are definitely Emma Watson (you need to see Hermione with an axe), Danny McBride and Michael Cera. However, they are mere additions to the main course of 'Pineapple Express'-like buddy comedy featuring Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill and Craig Robinson.

I wouldn't say the plot is non-existent, but it certainly isn't developed enough to pay much attention to it. The movie is rather a collection of gags with typical American humor, which is exactly what you would expect from anything created by the duo Seth Rogen-Evan Goldberg. But what's more, it is fairly obvious that the whole crew had so much fun making this movie. Be it playing soccer with a severed head, fighting over a Milky Way or filming the sequel to 'Pineapple Express' (hands down my favorite part of the movie) - it all seems to be pure fun to these guys. And it's amazing, because this atmosphere of good fun is passed to the audience. Plus it's nice to see big Hollywood names not taking themselves too seriously.

'This is the End' contains a fair amount of satire on the posh world of show-business. It also has a very simple, yet not so dumb message. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's anything overly ambitious or a piece of art that would leave you thinking about your life or state of the world. However, it makes the movie a bit better. That's always a good thing, right?

Overall, it's a very fun watch, especially if you have some friends and beer with you. It's simple - if you liked previous movies by Rogen- Goldberg, you're going to fall in love with this one. If you didn't - well, it's still worth a try.

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