Category Archives: Simon Pegg

Movie Review: The World’s End

“The World’s End” marks the end of the Cornetto trilogy, a trilogy connected only by theme and named after ice cream. It’s as much about a trilogy of humans as it is about a trilogy of movies: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost have created a pitch perfect cinematic universe where the code of law is alcoholism and arrested development.

Clearly, I will stay away from all possible spoilers, yet it is important to know that “The World’s End” comes full circle in the most, well, circular way possible: it starts and ends with people talking in a circle. In the beginning, it’s Gary King (Simon Pegg), a man who is a former shell of himself. Gary is a recovering alcoholic who can’t quite erase the memory of the best night of his life: The Golden Mile Pub Crawl.


The pub crawl covered all 12 pubs in his small English hometown of Newton Haven. Craving to relive the magic of that night from 20 years earlier, Gary reunites his whole gang. While they’ve all advanced forwards, he’s stayed exactly the same. Gary has some unfinished business in form of the World’s End, the last stop on the pub crawl and the one place they never got to.

The beginning of the film compromises of a bunch of montages of misery as Gary attempts to reunite the team. All of his friends have now split off and got respectable office jobs, wives, and children. Gary thinks that because he has no responsibilities, he has absolute freedom. What he doesn’t realize though is that having nothing doesn’t always help you get to a better place.

I wish I brought a timer into “The World’s End,” because the buildup is so impressive. It goes an extensive stretch of time as a buddy comedy about a bunch of friends getting drunk and reminiscing. That would be a fine movie by itself, but what makes it even better is the fact that Edgar Wright then takes it to the complete next level. The buildup is what makes the stakes so much higher once the robots invade and bleed blue paint everywhere. Yes, you read that right.

It takes a really long time for “The World’s End” to get to the robots, but that makes the first attack even more surprising and worth the wait. Up until that time, Wright and the guys show their brilliant knack for recurring jokes. The beautiful thing about “The World’s End” is that I already feel like I need to watch it again because of how much I must have missed the first time around. In one subtle sight gag, Gary drives his old, beat up, gas guzzling car past a billboard for an electric car. Few directors are as good at understanding visual humor as Edgar Wright.

“The World’s End” is yet another of Wright’s satires of small town life. In making fun of suburbia, “The World’s End” eventually brings life to the mundane. It is in the little everyday things that Wright seems most interested in, which is why watching a beer get poured in one Wright’s movies can be as cool as watching a robot get his head kicked off. And yes, the fight scenes are better than any Hollywood movie I’ve seen this summer.

“The World’s End” also shows Wright’s proficiency in the language of cinema. “The World’s End” is a perfect sci-fi homage. It borrows from everything from “Blade Runner” to “Minority Report” to movies I haven’t even seen. However, Wright is no thief. He takes things from different genres, blends them together, and then adds his own thoughts to it. What brings it to the next level is that it is also a perfect look at the nostalgia that runs popular culture. Just like the zombies in “Shaun of the Dead,” the robots of “The World’s End” aren’t too different from the humans. Like Gary (who could be a stand-in for a lot of the people who attend Comic Con), the robots are programmed with selective memory.

Of the three characters that Pegg has played in the Cornetto trilogy, Gary is by far the most pathetic, but ultimately the most entertaining to watch. If the Oscars took movies like “The World’s End” seriously, Pegg would be a frontrunner for Best Actor. His self-denial is as sad as his snark is hilarious. Luckily, Pegg is backed up by a great supporting cast, especially Nick Frost, who is one of the most talented comedic actors working today. He spends most of “The World’s End” as a subdued recovering alcoholic. Once that does change (that’s not a spoiler because come), Frost becomes a master of casual slapstick. Oh also this cast includes the guy who plays Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) as well as Pierce Brosnan, who sports a Trotsky/Evil Abed goatee.

Perhaps if “The World’s End” does well, people will start taking comedy a lot more seriously. Maybe a line like “he’s my cock!” doesn’t belong in a movie like this, but it is a line of dialogue that this story needs. It is the humor that gives “The World’s End” life and ultimately what makes its satire even sharper. Here lies the best damn movie so far this year. While “The World’s End” heavily debates the idea of slavery and whether freedom can be obtained by being a slave to something. Maybe I am missing the point by saying this, but Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost have my undivided attention and servitude for the rest of their careers.

Necessary. 

Movie Review: Paul

Comedies that have been made since, let’s say the 90s, have been strongly derived from science fiction. It seems odd to think that the people who were raised on “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” went on to make “Clerks” and “Knocked Up.” I never really connected the dots until I watched “Paul.” Sci-fi, in either the best or worst sense, can also be comedy.

“Paul” is one of those satires that’s a little mocking, yet very loving, at the same time. Only someone so in love with sci-fi and comic book culture could ever make fun of it in this way. “Paul” is one of those movies that was much better than it had any right to be, or at least much better then I ever thought it would be.
“Paul” begins in a place where the new heroes of the 21st century seem to dwell: Comic-Con. Best friends Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) come all the way from England to experience the convention. On the way back, they stop off at some alien landing sites and come across Paul (Seth Rogen), a foul-mouthed, weed smoking alien who just wants to go back home. Now, the duo must help Paul safely meet his ship, while avoiding some very sinister FBI agents (including an intentionally robotic Jason Bateman, along with the much more ridiculous Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio). Along the way they also pick up a Jesus freak (Kristen Wiig) and flee her psychotic father (John Carroll Lynch).
“Paul” might not land my 10 best list for the year, but I will say that it’s probably the best put together comedy I’ve seen so far this year (though the competition is pretty slim). Though this shouldn’t be surprising, based on the people involved. Pegg and Frost have already gracefully mocked zombie movies with “Shaun of the Dead” and action movies with “Hot Fuzz.” In both cases, they wrote movies that both mocked the genres while becoming entries into them. “Paul” is no exception. These people have obviously partaken in enough sci-fi to know how to make fun of it correctly.
“Paul” has such a sprawling cast of comedic talent, and each actor contributes exactly the way they should be. Pegg and Frost have been practicing British bromance for close to a decade now, and they really know how to do it right. Though this time, their relationship had a much difference balance. It was a little less of one actually trying to get things done, and the other being a total idiot. This time, their friendship was basically played up as a romance, with hilarious effect.
The best comedic minds in Britain blend with America’s funniest comedians in “Paul.” I guess someone who can make characters as awkward as Wiig can was destined to one day play a half blind hard-core Christian; I guess she fulfilled her destiny. Rogen meanwhile is good as ever, even in alien form. At times, Paul never seemed very alien, because no one bothered to make his character any different from the real Seth Rogen. This actually turns out to be a good thing, as Paul becomes a likable, almost human character. He’s like E.T., if only E.T. could speak fluent English and chain smoke.
“Paul” nailed all of its sci-fi and pop culture references, from the never-ending mothership to the meeting spot at Devil’s Tower. The film is directed by Greg Motolla, who impresses more and more with the range of comedies he can direct. He can go from gross out (“Superbad”), to a little dramatic (“Adventureland”), to one that has an FX alien as a main character.
What Motolla does best is make sappy ideas seem very sweet. Think about the power of the friendship in “Superbad.” That’s why I really wish “Paul” had a little more emphasis on the friendship between Graeme and Clive, because very little development and change occurs in it throughout the film. This is too bad, as this was always a strong and hilarious aspect in the other films Pegg and Frost made together. Nothing against Motolla, but perhaps frequent collaborator Edgar Wright would’ve been a good directorial choice here.
Then again, how do you fit a fully developed buddy comedy into a movie about a half naked alien? If Motolla, Pegg, and Frost could’ve pulled that off, they’d forever be comic geniuses. Maybe they didn’t get there, but they still made a perfectly acceptable, unstoppably hilarious satire. They have certainly followed this rule of good satire quite well: if you want to make a good satire (especially of pop culture), you must be both familiar, and a little in love, with the content you are making fun of.
Most Anticipated Movies of 2011 - Paul