This is the end Movie review
MOVIE REVIEW: Hello and welcome to approximately the 30th film to be released in 2013 where the world as we know it is just about over.
Your hosts for this particular apocalypse-now are a bunch of Hollywood celebrities playing alt-versions of themselves.
If you haven't guessed already, this is the End is a comedy. A moderately clever one, actually.
The gimmick of witnessing the obliteration of mankind while partying down at the mansion of James Franco does carry a truckload of novelty value.
However, it was never going to be enough to sustain an entire film.
Long-time writing partners (and on this occasion, first-time directors) Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are smart enough to never let this is the End merely rests on the laurels of its berserk stunt casting.
(How berserk? Try Harry Potter's Emma Watson running amok with an axe. Or how about Superbad super-nerd Michael Cera annoyingly blowing cocaine in the face of anyone and everyone?)
Once that this is the End has summarily executed 90 per cent of its ensemble by the half-hour mark - even the unstoppable Rihanna can't cheat the reaper - the movie takes a turn for the better.
The final two acts leave us cooped up in the confines of Franco's post-modern man-cave with a handful of surly survivors.
Among these last men standing you will find Rogen, his real-life best buddy Jay Baruchel (She's Out of My League), Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Danny McBride (Your Highness) and Craig Robinson (the US version of TV's The Office).
What follows is a solid hour of semi-improvised sledging, accompanied by much ingestion of illicit substances and, I kid you not, the filming of a four-minute sequel to Pineapple Express.
As far as stoner comedies go, this is the End does hit the same number of flat spots experienced by the worst and best of the genre.
What saves the movie from an irreversible slide into self-indulgence is the sincerely biblical nature of the impending Armageddon happening just beyond Franco's front door.
Your hosts for this particular apocalypse-now are a bunch of Hollywood celebrities playing alt-versions of themselves.
If you haven't guessed already, this is the End is a comedy. A moderately clever one, actually.
The gimmick of witnessing the obliteration of mankind while partying down at the mansion of James Franco does carry a truckload of novelty value.
However, it was never going to be enough to sustain an entire film.
Long-time writing partners (and on this occasion, first-time directors) Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are smart enough to never let this is the End merely rests on the laurels of its berserk stunt casting.
(How berserk? Try Harry Potter's Emma Watson running amok with an axe. Or how about Superbad super-nerd Michael Cera annoyingly blowing cocaine in the face of anyone and everyone?)
Once that this is the End has summarily executed 90 per cent of its ensemble by the half-hour mark - even the unstoppable Rihanna can't cheat the reaper - the movie takes a turn for the better.
The final two acts leave us cooped up in the confines of Franco's post-modern man-cave with a handful of surly survivors.
Among these last men standing you will find Rogen, his real-life best buddy Jay Baruchel (She's Out of My League), Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Danny McBride (Your Highness) and Craig Robinson (the US version of TV's The Office).
What follows is a solid hour of semi-improvised sledging, accompanied by much ingestion of illicit substances and, I kid you not, the filming of a four-minute sequel to Pineapple Express.
As far as stoner comedies go, this is the End does hit the same number of flat spots experienced by the worst and best of the genre.
What saves the movie from an irreversible slide into self-indulgence is the sincerely biblical nature of the impending Armageddon happening just beyond Franco's front door.