The World's End

The World's End is barmageddon

It is a film that has everything - ­excessive beer quaffing, hand-to-hand combat, romance, male bonding and saving the future of mankind.

The World's End review

For blokes of a certain age, this will tick all kinds of emotional boxes. For everyone else this is a hugely entertaining final curtain for a trilogy that has consistently delivered originality and, most importantly, plenty of laughs.

The World's End - film review

Basically this is the same laddy combination of energetic slapstick and cherished verbosity as before.

The World's End is best viewed through beer goggles

First came the brilliant Shaun Of The Dead, then the hit-and-miss Hot Fuzz. Now the droolingly anticipated finale of this 'Cornetto' trilogy - so called because each film contains a different flavour - ends with a mix of bang and whimper.

If Paul, the last Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie, was a self-indulgent journey into the outer realms of nerdiness, their latest collaboration is aimed squarely at those without an intimate knowledge of the Star Wars movies.

A crowd pleaser, this is a sci-fi comedy for everyone. Twenty years after a teenage pub crawl through their hometown, Pegg rounds up his old buddies (Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan) for a re-run.

But while reminiscing, they learn that the place has a severe case of the Stepfords.

The film contains plenty that men approaching middle age will relate to and the laughs never dry up with Pierce Brosnan, who plays one of their former teachers, an absolute hoot.

Review: The World's End

The World's End has less ideas and charm than its predecessors and feels more boisterously male (Rosamund Pike barely gets a look in as Oliver's sister) but it's a measure of the talent involved that it's still raucously witty enough to have you in stitches right up until they call time.

Review: The World's End (15)

The third (and final?) part of the so-called "Cornetto trilogy" is a hit-and-miss affair, it boasts much of the same vibe as predecessors Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz but, crucially, the expansion of the cast means that the pairing of Pegg and Frost is weakened.

Edgar Wright contemplates The World's End

As Wright explains, the pub crawl wasn't the only event from his youth that he put on screen.

Film review: The World's End (15)

It's fine in its way, a fond and silly salute to pub crawls, old friends, crap cars, roundabouts, British eccentricity and keeping your head in a crisis - it's just terribly hit-and-miss.

Pegg & Frost's new film is a very fun night out

For all its flaws, The World's End is fun. It's not as appealing as Shaun Of The Dead, but I preferred it to Hot Fuzz.