This Is the End (2013)
Directed by Evan Goldberg
While attending a party at James Franco's house, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and many other celebrities are faced with the apocalypse.
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With Rogen, along with James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Emma Watson, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Michael Cera and others all playing themselves -- or at least their perception of how Hollywood and the public view them and their personas -- the film also comes off as a big inside joke as mixed with a "Scary Movie" style spoof of disaster and horror films, complete with an extended sequence lifted from and inspired by a film that was made before many of those involved were born, "The Exorcist."
That their fixation on movies only has them prepared to spout pop culture references and, say, deal with demonic possession by quoting "The Exorcist"?
There's an extended homage to The Exorcist that may be obvious but turns out to be really damn funny anyway.
In some ways this is just a creepier, slightly funnier horror-pic spoof than anything in the recently resurrected “Scary Movie” franchise; along with its references to “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist,” the film spends a considerable amount of time elucidating prophecies in the book of Revelation, often with an impressively straight face.
If Rogen and Goldberg want a hit as big as “Ghostbusters” (another film, along with “The Exorcist” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” that this one borrows from), they should remember that the Bill Murray comedy didn’t keep putting the plot on hold for long stretches of improv.
The obvious nods to " The Exorcist " and "Rosemary's Baby" co-exist with a hilarious examination of the familiar dynamics of a group of friends.
(And if it's too on-the-nose for you, maybe you can impress your friends by spotting the Rosemary's Baby nod that happens elsewhere.)
In some ways this is just a creepier, slightly funnier horror-pic spoof than anything in the recently resurrected “Scary Movie” franchise; along with its references to “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist,” the film spends a considerable amount of time elucidating prophecies in the book of Revelation, often with an impressively straight face.
And just when things start to drag a little, This Is the End pays vulgar homage to Rosemary’s Baby and the monsters arrive, leading to situations such as a gross-out soccer game with a severed head.
If Rogen and Goldberg want a hit as big as “Ghostbusters” (another film, along with “The Exorcist” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” that this one borrows from), they should remember that the Bill Murray comedy didn’t keep putting the plot on hold for long stretches of improv.
I will note, however, that the film's ripoff of the demonic impregnation scene in Rosemary's Baby is considerably more horrifying than the original.
The obvious nods to " The Exorcist " and "Rosemary's Baby" co-exist with a hilarious examination of the familiar dynamics of a group of friends.
With Rogen, along with James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Emma Watson, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Michael Cera and others all playing themselves -- or at least their perception of how Hollywood and the public view them and their personas -- the film also comes off as a big inside joke as mixed with a "Scary Movie" style spoof of disaster and horror films, complete with an extended sequence lifted from and inspired by a film that was made before many of those involved were born, "The Exorcist."
In some ways this is just a creepier, slightly funnier horror-pic spoof than anything in the recently resurrected “Scary Movie” franchise; along with its references to “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist,” the film spends a considerable amount of time elucidating prophecies in the book of Revelation, often with an impressively straight face.
If you like dick jokes, urine jokes, the "Scary Movie" series and Danny McBride turning his usual brand of sociopathic humor up to 11, this might be the movie for you.
If Rogen and Goldberg want a hit as big as “Ghostbusters” (another film, along with “The Exorcist” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” that this one borrows from), they should remember that the Bill Murray comedy didn’t keep putting the plot on hold for long stretches of improv.
Seth Rogan and friends manage to do what even Ivan Reitman couldn’t do himself: duplicate the comedic formula that made Ghostbusters so irresistible.
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Baruchel hates LA in the same way Woody Allen’s Alvy Singer hated it in Annie Hall , but what he encounters tops his worst expectations.
The 1992 film The Player assembled a huge cast of famous actors to play versions of themselves in director Robert Altman’s witty and vicious satire of Hollywood.
With its roaming camera (Rogen makes his directorial debut alongside longtime screenwriting partner Evan Goldberg) and sharp ensemble cast, it has the feel of a younger, fouler version of Robert Altman’s The Player.
As a result, This Is the End, in addition to being the funniest film of the year, is also the best buddies-versus-the-apocalypse film since Simon Pegg and Nick Frost battled zombie hordes to make it back to the Winchester in 2004’s Shaun of the Dead.
Taking a page from Shaun of the Dead , This Is the End balances humor, horror, and sentiment.
The film plays out like “Shaun of the Dead” with half the wit, double the filth and enough juvenile humor to make Seth MacFarlane blush.
Like Shaun Of The Dead, This Is The End lightly satirizes its protagonists’ stoner/slacker obliviousness by having them not notice that society is being ripped asunder until an apocalyptic event is well under way.
The main difference—and it's not to be underestimated—is that This Is the End is profane in the extreme, an R-rated stoner comedy gleefully grafted onto a "splatstick" horror picture, the next evolutionary step for the in-bred hipster comedy world that thrilled to Shaun of the Dead.
It’s Tropic Thunder crossed with Shaun of the Dead with just a dollop of Being John Malkovich.
Unlike the raunchy Wedding Crashers, it's rated PG-13 instead of R, it avoids the strain of mean-spiritedness that's in vogue in modern comedy, and its leads are now more comfortable making jokes about 1953's Stalag 17 and 1983's Flashdance than anything from the brave new world of 2013.
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All of the above should know better.A film that has the gall to insult " Your Highness " and then proceed to be just as desperate and cloying as that misbegotten medieval comedy, "This Is the End" reminds of 2010's much-maligned alien invasion thriller " Skyline ," only with fewer laughs and imagination.
Normally in disaster comedies, the sequences of destruction are brief and cheesy (to be fair, there aren't many comparisons unless you count unintentional parodies like Independence Day).