This Is the End

Note: May contain spoilers. Proceed with caution.It's a party at Franco's house and everybody's invited! No, I'm being serious. If you pick a comedian at random there's a pretty good chance they're in here. Unfortunately, halfway through the party there's this huge earthquake, a giant sinkhole, and a good chunk of the cast dies. If anything, this is my biggest complaint with This Is The End. I would have loved to have seen some interaction beyond the six main "characters". For example, I was so happy when I saw Jason Segel, but I don't remember him having more than one line of dialogue and Paul Rudd came and went in a matter of 90 seconds. The disappointment stops there, however, because from that point on This Is The End is a non-stop laugh fest that has you fighting to control your bladder.While This Is The End is going to attract a lot of attention from its extensive cast of actors (which include the likes of Michael Cera, Emma Watson, Aziz Ansari, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse), its main focus is on the six men who seem to have all been in a movie together at some point in time. You follow Seth Rogen, James Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, and Danny McBride who all play some exaggerated version of themselves. The world is ending and the apocalypse is here. This is kind of the glue that holds the film together because the main story is about Rogen and Baruchel's "struggling" relationship.Most of the movie is spent in Franco's new house, which he deems "the fort". Because you have six grown men stuck in a house together with limited resources, tempers start to flare. Things get said and the truth comes out. This is where the meat of the comedy is found. The banter between these six comedians as they continue to bash one another is nothing short of magical. Danny McBride is probably the most ruthless of the six as he appears to "hate" every single person in the house. Jonah's over-the-top kindness never stopped being funny and I couldn't help but laugh every time I saw Craig's "Take Yo Panties Off!" shirt.With the comedy comes some unexpected suspense, however, and that's when the theater became dead quiet. Because we've entered the apocalypse demons are roaming around the city and each one is packing a gigantic penis. There's no avoiding its gaze as Goldberg and Rogen make it a point to zoom in on its monstrous size. There's only one really intense scene with Robinson and Baruchel, but, for me, it really killed the flow of the film. We were given joke after joke after joke and then boom! I've never seen a theater become so quiet so quick. While it made sense given the context of the film, I still feel like This Is The End wouldn't have suffered without it.Another thing that kind of threw me off was the hefty amount of religious talk scattered throughout the movie. From the start Baruchel sees this as our "judgement day" because he saw people being sucked up into the sky by blue beams of light. I assumed it would stop there and they would take a different approach to the whole "end of the world" theme, but I was wrong. Baruchel continues to back his statements and we slowly start to learn that he was correct in his assumption. For those of you who aren't religious or aren't Christian, don't fret. While they are using the bible as a way to smooth out the rough edges of the story, it's merely there to provide a message: Be nice to people and try to put the needs of others above your own. You don't need to believe in God to understand that basic concept, but it's still something that seems long forgotten in today's world.Finally, the visual effects in this movie are fantastic for a comedy film. While each demon has your run-of-the-mill design, they're all given an extreme amount of detail. If you're a comedy enthusiast you're going to be impressed by what you see here. Usually comedy films don't have huge budgets, so when one wants to include CGI of some sort it usually looks terrible. This Is The End completely destroys that trend and made it clear that comedy films deserve to be just as creative as your big-budget Sci-Fi action films.Overall Score: 9/10 - I was really surprised at just how much I enjoyed this movie. I had some high expectations given its cast and I wasn't disappointed. From start to finish the comedy was non-stop and I even had tears streaming down my face during some sequences. What makes it so great is the fact that it's so ruthless and confident in its delivery, which makes it so easy to fall in love with. If you're a fan of Rogen and his posse of friends then you should definitely see this. This Is The End is truly one of the best comedies I've seen in years and I can't wait to see it again.

My son turned me on to this movie and I am glad he did. This is a star studded hilarious romp!

My brother’s favorite movie! Loves it and always a great laugh

I really love the premise of this movie and my love for the premise might be effecting my over all opinion of the film. Whenever I really love the premise of a movie I am almost always a little disappointed in the actual execution. I never quite feel like any movie is able to live up to my expectations or I start thinking of all the things I wish they had done or I wish they had not done or done differently. I love the idea of a self-lampooning comedy about actors who play themselves and are trapped in a house at the end of the world. I also am a big fan of Michael Cera - who, admittedly, is only in the first twenty minutes or so of the movie, but is responsible for what I think were the film's funniest moments - and Jonah Hill - who does a great job lampooning his reputation as a "nice guy" in this movie.I also love the way the film focused on the changing relationships between the main characters who are left after the apocalypse (James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride). The layers of Hollywood phoniness begin to peel off as they are trapped in the house and their true feelings begin to come to light and it gives rise to a number of really hilarious moments between the characters. The changing relationships also allowed the filmmakers to make a movie that takes place almost entirely inside a house while still maintaining the audience's interest (more on this a little later).There are really, I think, two kinds of humor in the movie: there is what I will call character comedy, for lack of a better term, and there is gross out comedy. Character comedy includes the ridiculousness or exaggeration of certain characters. Jonah Hill's false veneer of friendliness is hilarious and Danny McBride's crudity and unconcern for everyone else brings a lot of laughs (although I started to get a bit frustrated by it at some point). Character comedy also includes moments where characters do things that seem out of character (think about Quagmire's love for cats in Family Guy). For example, the idea of all of these actors being scared and cuddling up to sleep together. The best character comedy in the movie, in my opinion, is the portrayal of Michael Cera as a coke addled womanizer. The movie is worth watching for that alone but there is a lot of great character comedy in the movie.There is also a lot of crude humor in the movie. I feel like there was kind of a shift in humor after South Park became really popular. South Park somehow managed to elevate low brow humor into high brow humor and there was a huge influx of crude humor as a result. I certainly have nothing against crude humor (I love South Park) but I feel like there has been such an influx of it (The Hangover, The 40 Year Old Virgin, etc.) that it has lost some of its shock value. When Cartman defecates on Mr. Garrison's desk it is shocking and unexpected and the humor is at least partly based on the shock. However, I feel like we are accustomed now to guys talking about masturbation in extremely explicit terms, urine jokes, etc, and it is no longer as shocking or funny. So, this is my long-winded way of saying: I loved the character humor in the movie, I think it really worked, but I was not as impressed with the attempts at crude humor, I don't think they worked as well.I also felt, at times, like the movie was reaching for a story line. They had a great premise: actors trapped in a house at the end of the world, but then they were faced with the problem: what are the characters going to do trapped inside a house for an hour and forty-five minutes? The scenes where they are making a sequel to Pineapple Express, and the scene where they take ecstasy and dance around, felt like they were just filler, attempts to give everyone something to do, that were loosely stitched together. It would have been easy to make a story out of the end of the world if the characters had been trying to get somewhere but the premise of the movie is: they are trapped in the house. That made it difficult to construct a story. However, I will say this: I was never bored.Finally, I felt like the end was a bit predictable. I am not sure that could have been avoided but the fact that I had guessed how it was going to end before it actually ended detracted from the experience a bit for me. SPOILER ALERT. I knew that when Craig decided to sacrifice himself he was going to get sucked up to heaven and I knew that when Seth decided to let go he would be taken up to heaven as well. I was surprised and pleased with Franco's unexpected fall from grace and I really enjoyed Danny McBride as a cannibal and the final vision of Satan striding over Hollywood as it burned. All of that made up somewhat for the predictability.Overall, I think the movie was definitely worth watching, it is one of the better comedies I have seen in awhile, but it still suffered from what I consider to be some minor problems that kept it from being what I would consider a perfect comedy (if such a thing exists).

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Totally inappropriate and if you’re a type that gets upset at low brow humor this is not for you. I found it hysterically funny. Good movie to watch after a smoke or a few cocktails.

Very funny, I need to laugh and enjoy!!

Great movie, laughed the entire time

If you like the idea of the usual suspects that hang out together in all the movies they do together then this is for you!!! Seth Rogan, Franco, Jonah Hill and all the rest..... Now you may have got the idea I don't like this movie. No I am not a fan of the above actors together but alone they are usually decent. But this movie breaks all the rules and is hilarious. This is the end features a star studded cast playing themselves as they all try to survive the apocalypse...

The actors self indulge in this comedy- but that's not to say it isn't good! Its actually very funny, some school boy humour thrown in with an all star cast. Basic storyline good versus evil with some off the rails events- Channing tatum is all I'll say here!!!Worth A watch. Good for price. Wouldn't pay more than £5 as its not a number one style film.

This isn't usually my genre of film but a Friend recommended it knowing I'm a bit of a fan of James Franco. I'm glad I took her recommendation and watched it becuase it is one of the best films I've seen in a while. Brilliant cast who really seem to bounce off each other and even though there is a lot of violence and gore it is also hilarious and by the end my mind had been blown, in a good way. Amazing film which I highly recommend.

This movie has lots of cameos and violence. It probably works so well because they take the mick out of each other. The cast is excellent and Jonah Hill is top class. At first, I wasn't sure about this movie but about 30 minutes in, it started to pick up. It's full of twists and turns and laughs. Sure, it does have some "cringe" moments in there, but I would recommend this movie, if you are a fan of the main cast.

A laugh riot. A mate and I had to watch it again immediately after watching it the first time as we missed so much due to laughing.