SPLICED MOVIES /
ISSUE 02
REVIEW / THE WORLD’S END
" The real triumph, as in Wright and Pegg’s
previous efforts, is that the central story,
which is always focused on the characters and
their personal journeys, as well as the pure
Britishness of it all, is never to be outdone by
the sci-fi elements..."
It soon becomes clear that Gary
(Pegg) is a slightly tragic character, with
a fatal case of nostalgia for his teenage
years, when his ‘fuck the world’ attitude
made him cool, and his lack of ambition
seemed mightily impressive and edgy to
his mates, but in his adult years is pretty
sad. Roughly 20 years have passed
when we encounter Gary again, who, in
an effort to relive his glory days, forms
an almost obsessive plan to complete
the Golden Mile pub crawl, consisting
of 12 pubs in his former hometown,
with his childhood friends in tow. The
only problem is, while Gary has been
living in the past, the other four of the
‘Five Musketeers’ have all moved on,
grown up, gotten married, and have
‘proper’ jobs.
It takes some convincing, but Gary
“gets the band back together”, and once
more they (with much less enthusiasm
than Gary) embark on the quest to
conquer The Golden Mile, with the
end goal of reaching pub number 12;
158
The World’s End. Of course, it couldn’t
be that easy, and it all kicks off when
the gang discovers that their once
hometown has been quietly invaded by
robots (who aren’t robots) from outer
space. The robots (who aren’t robots)
make their intentions known; they’re
offering not a take-over but a ‘merger’,
and in a lovely bit of social commentary,
the issues of ‘Starbucking’ small towns
are raised, not all that subtly, but rather
sneakily by Wright and the team. At
the risk of over-doing it on the spoilers
(sweetie), not much more will be said
about that.
The real triumph, as in Wright and
Pegg’s previous efforts, is that the
central story, which is always focused
on the characters and their personal
journeys, as well as the pure Britishness
of it all, is never to be outdone by the
sci-fi elements, the stylish fight scenes,
and the insanity. The sci-fi itself is
reminiscent of classics like Invasion
of the Body Snatchers, Village of the
The extremely slick
‘Beehive’ fight scene
was choreographed
by Brad Allan, who
famously worked and
trained with Jackie
Chan for many years.
Gary’s (Pegg) style of
fighting in this scene
is a nod to Chan’s
Drunken Master
movies, in which the
fighter manages to kick
ass and take names all
without letting go of his
drink, while displaying
greater fighting
prowess as he gets
steadily more drunk.