Review: This is the End

Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment

When I first saw the trailers for this movie, I was immediately excited to see Seth Rogen, James Franco and Danny McBride back together again. Pineapple Express is one of my favorite comedies featuring the likes of Rogen and McBride to date out of all those Apatow-ish and inspired R-rated comedies. Pineapple Express cleverly incorporated stoner-comedy with buddy comedy in a highly entertaining mix of action and violence but with plenty of hilarious slapstick effects. Pineapple Express also showed that Franco has a knack for such comedy and that McBride is a serious comedic personality to be reckoned with. So, when trailers for This is the End began running and I learned that Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel and Craig Robinson had joined the team, it seemed like it could be a formidable film to reach the level of Pineapple Express. All of these actors playing themselves stuck in James Franco's house trying to survive the apocalypse happening outside in Hollywood? Sounds like a fun time!

And it is fun for a few scenes and gags between the actors. It's fun seeing the likes of Aziz Ansari, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rihanna, Martin Starr, Michael Cera, Emma Watson, and others all playing themselves and making fun of themselves. All the guys make fun of Franco for being a "nerd" and collecting weird art pieces. Hill is picked on for being the only one with an Oscar nomination while Baruchel is the outcast who's obviously not as famous as the others. And of course, McBride is just labeled the asshole reminiscent of his role in HBO's Eastbound and Down. The majority of the film feels like these guys are just hanging out and the way each scene is setup and how the lines are delivered feels like much of it is improvised (which it could very likely be). So, for most of the film, not much happens in regards to the apocalyptic storyline and the story focuses on the gang making fun of each other and basically seeing who can outdo the other in crude humor mostly related to penises and the like.

Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment

But then it's like Rogen and Evan Goldberg (the writers and directors) remembered they should probably find some way to end this thing and make the apocalyptic thing more important. These are the times when things turn towards cliche horror plot-points and cheesy graphics. The guys realize that what is happening is really the Biblical apocalypse and that they need to find some way for God to rapture them up into heaven. The resulting action and sequences are not as funny or entertaining as some of the banter between characters we see beforehand. Rogen and Goldberg are not able to pull-off as clever of a script as Pineapple Express with its smooth transitions and finely tuned dialogue and plot-points without the help of Judd Apatow's writing or David Gordon Green's more experienced directing.

The end result is that This is the End maintains a mild level of entertainment and survives off of a few hilarious exchanges between characters (one screaming match between Franco and McBride in particular). The plot is clunky and disjointed and would have profited more from the characters having more time outside of the setting of Franco's house to wander around Hollywood, possibly encounter more celebrities, and experience other shenanigans. That being said, it's probably still funnier than most of the comedies coming out this summer. So, if you don't mind some crude humor having to do with particular bodily fluids, then you're guaranteed to get some laughs out of it, but it doesn't really come close to the hilarity of Pineapple Express.