Not a Movie Snob - This Is The End

Posted on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 06:00 PM

1 Thessalonians 4:17 - "Then we which are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Revelation 17:8 - "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is."

This Is The End

When the end days hit the earth, whatever brings them on and whatever form they take, they will hit us all without prejudice and without consideration of wealth or social status. The famous and the celebrated will fall down right beside the blue collar factory worker and the bag boy. And when faced with mortality and staring into the great beyond, with the final understanding that being a celebrity is not a shield, we will, most of us, all react the same, all react together. Nothing is more unifying than knowing that everyone on the planet is going to go with you.

Anyways, that's the basic plot of This Is The End. A bunch of buddies are over at a friend's and the apocalypse takes hold outside his house and they band together (and fall apart) trying to extend their lives as long as humanly possible. The catch (and schtick) here is that these buddies are famous actors, the friend's house is a huge mansion in the (now burning) Hollywood Hills and the only way out of this predicament is by getting sucked into heaven via a ray of light reserved for those who are good of heart. So you can imagine the Hollywood area of Los Angeles is going to remain pretty crowded.

It's all very biblical, and while cries of 'blaspheme!' will ring out among the more fundamentalist groups (the few who still accuse people of blasphemy), the way things go down in This Is The End actually stick pretty true to the way they do in the book of Revelation. Granted, this is a film about a group of potty mouthed celebrities who got famous making movies about being potty mouthed and doing drugs. So don't expect the movie to go three minutes without offending someone, but there is a positive message in there somewhere between the dick jokes and occasional splatters of gore.

This movie actually has a pretty ingenious little gimmick working for it. In these days of celebrity obsession and one post apocalyptic movie or show following another (usually involving zombies, thankfully no zombies show up here), making a movie about a bunch of famous people attempting to survive the end of the world is money in the bank, pure and simple. Making it a comedy and putting some of the funniest guys in entertainment in it just adds that extra dollar sign to the formula.

Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson are the housemates. Jay Baruchel plays himself and the idea is that he goes to visit Rogan at his new Los Angeles abode and they head over to James Franco's for a party Franco's throwing to celebrate the purchase of his new, no expenses spared Hollywood mansion. There's a running reference throughout the movie regarding Baruchel being uncomfortable hanging out with Rogan's much more famous friends, with not only his aversion to the Hollywood lifestyle but the fact that he isn't as famous as the rest of them. Which is technically true, but Baruchel isn't exactly a nobody. The guy's starred or had bit parts in movies directed by such heavy hitting tinsel town namesakes as Clint Eastwood, Ben Stiller and David Cronenberg. Not to mention voicing Hiccup, the lead character in 2010's animated moneymaker How To Train Your Dragon.

Still, at this point in time, if you were walking down the street and Baruchel walked by you with Seth Rogan, you'd probably be more compelled to tell you friends you saw Rogan than Baruchel. Well, before this movie came out anyway. There are also a smattering of cameos from a host of very recognizable faces. I'm not going to say who though, as part of the fun of this movie comes from picking them out yourself.

All that jibber jabber aside, this is a comedy, populated with some very funny dudes. Is this movie funny? Is it funny enough to drop twelve bucks on? Whether you know much about me or not, you know that just by the fact that you're reading a review right now on a blog I write solely about movies, that I watch a lot of them. Without any exaggeration whatsoever, This Is The End is the funniest movie I have ever seen in a movie theatre. I have never laughed as hard or as much in the dark with a bunch of strangers with my feet sticking to the floor as I did for the duration of this picture. There are so many quality, high energy, hilarious jokes packed into every two minutes of this movie, I feel like I probably missed a good chunk of them just because I couldn't hear the next joke over the guffaws emanating from my mouth from the last joke.

That being said, this is definitely a particular kind of humour. If you're the kind of person who's side gets to splitting watching crap like Sex and the City, you probably won't like this movie. If you find the show How I Met Your Mother just about reaches the tip of your offend-o-meter, you will probably hate this movie. This movie is for people who are into the new batch of Apatow offshoots. The Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Superbad and Bridesmaides crowd. If you're in that crowd, you're in this crowd. And you have to see this movie.

Aside from the endless parade of jokes being fired at you from the screen like bullets from a tommy gun, This Is The End is compelling to watch because, while the guys in this movie are undoubtably playing up playing themselves (and taking shots at themselves and their celebrity to boot), you can't help but wonder how close the characters are to the real mccoy.

As I said, this movie sticks pretty close to the book of Revelation from the Bible in regards to how John says the end will go down, not word for word mind you, but closer than you'd think going in. And there is a bonafide positive message you can take from it, despite the over the top-ness of the movie from end to end. So what is the message of This Is The End? I guess it's be a good person because you never know when fire will rain down upon us all. That, and always always have an extra couple Milky Way's kicking around the house.

Verdict:
Over the top in every way, this is a neat little twist (and jab) on the post apocalyptic film/reality genres. Not for everyone, but those who find it funny, will find it hilarious from the first moment to the last.

Rating: ****½