This Is the End - Movie Review
1"This Is The End" (2013) directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen is pretty funny and enjoyable but it's extremely stupid and meaningless. I also wasn't in love with the premise, but it could have been a lot worse and ultimately I did feel it was worth my time.
(Everybody plays themselves in this.) Jay Baruchel comes to L.A. to hang out with his friend Seth Rogen. Jay wants to keep it low key but Seth convinces him to go to a big housewarming party held by James Franco. Suddenly the biblical apocalypse unleashes and the good people are raptured into Heaven, while the bad ones remain on Earth, and now we are left with a handful of clueless actors trying to survive their new Hell.
First of all I would like to admit that I actually liked This Is the End more upon rewatch. The first time I watched it I was just a casual viewer who didn't care enough to make reviews at the time, and to me it felt like a colossal waste of time that had too many rape jokes and bad CGI for it's own good. Upon rewatch, I was able to appreciate it a lot more because it's essentially the biggest celebrity ensemble cast we may ever see in a film maybe other than "Movie 43" (2013). It also serves as a spiritual successor to both "Superbad" (2007) & "Pineapple Express" (2008), paying a ton of homage to the latter in particular, and those are both some of the greatest comedies to date so it's highly appreciated to see the love.
The problems start with the fact everyone is playing themselves, or actually, playing caricatures of themselves. I love quite literally every single actors in this film but most of them come off as incredibly pompous and annoying, Jay Baruchel in particular is quite insufferable, and James Franco really needed to be humbled in this, the film ageing a little poorly due to the real life misconduct allegations against him too which he ended up paying settlements for which equates to pleading guilty basically. I didn't get much value out of them playing themselves because they weren't acting like themselves at all, Michael Cera is obviously not this hideous of a human being he makes himself out to be, nor is Jonah Hill some treasured American saint who everyone worships and can do no wrong. The ones who do get it right are Danny McBride, Craig Robinson & Channing Tatum, each being humble enough to allow themselves to be made fun of while not making me actively hate them or potentially lose respect for them.
This Is the End is the ultimate ensemble celebrity survival movie, and it has plenty of great moments to keep you entertained. While I think the Backstreet Boys ending is terrible and the general idea of it wasn't working for me, I am such a fan of Superbad & Pineapple Express that I couldn't help but like it at least a little bit.
Video by Rainy Nights.
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