This Is the End (2013)

Directed by: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Written by: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg
Starring: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson
Rated: R

Upon exiting the theater having just seen "This Is the End", my buddy and I immediately began talking about the movie and why it got such positive reviews. He postulated that all critics hate comedies and therefore the film must be great. I'm not sure I quite agree with that. After all, I like to laugh and so does everyone I've ever met. A good comedy and a bottle of your drink of choice is the best remedy for a bad day. But there's the qualifier. A "good" comedy, hell a good film in general is damn hard to find, and bad comedies are the easiest to tear apart for the big, fat reason that they target demographics that would do better spending $10 buying a dictionary. But if I may speak for all critics, I'd like to say that I avoid comedies if I can help it because with a drama, even if it's lousy, more often than not I can still give it points for having tried to say something new. With a comedy, and particularly one that features any of the cast in this film, I usually just tell myself that I've heard all the poop jokes I want to hear, and I give it a miss.

There are definitely the raunchy, easy jokes that I expected to find in this movie, no doubt about it. I mean, you can't really assemble Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera and Paul Rudd and not have a few jokes--or many, many--about sex and drugs and all of the other things that bros talk about. That said, thinking back on it I can't remember any toilet humor at all. Maybe that's why there aren't any profanities in my notes.

But for all of the easy jokes that stuff this movie, I found myself really enjoying Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen's blend of buddy movie and apocalyptic horror. It's a self-parody on multiple levels, all of the actors playing themselves, and most of them doing wickedly funny impersonations of what we've come to expect them to be. I don't know how true any of the relationships in the story are in real life, but here Seth and Jay are two best friends reunited in LA after many months apart. Much to Jay's annoyance, Seth has made a circle of new friends including James, Jonah and Craig, but trying to appease Seth he agrees to attend a party at James Franco's house.

The first third of the script is laugh-out-loud funny, and my friend and I both agreed that a hilarious film could have resulted had they cut the last two-thirds of the story and simply had a movie about stars beings stars off screen. Each moment was packed full of inside jokes and referential quips with each of the actors poking fun at their careers and their images. The cameos are almost too many to name, but some big ones were Paul Rudd, Rihanna, Aziz Ansari and Mindy Kaling. Michael Cera had a small but hysterical part as a coked-out sex fiend. Also, I'm not sure if this was on purpose or not, but Emma Watson also had a brief role in which she had a terrible British accent. I honestly don't know if it was affected or not, but it would be awesome if it were.

James Franco plays the playboy douche whose evening and house is destroyed when the rapture hits Hollywood. Earthquakes, fire and demons engulf the city, and after a great many deaths only Seth, Jay, James, Jonah, Danny and Craig are left in James' obscenely huge house while things outside literally go to Hell. Over the following hour (at least 15 minutes too long) we watch the six of them try to stay alive as fire and brimstone rains down around them, but we also watch as their friendships are tested. Never fear though, nothing starring Seth Rogen could possibly end up poorly. Can you imagine if he was damned to burn for eternity?

This will probably be looked back on as the best feel-good comedy of the summer and a sleeper hit at that. It has enough smart things going on all the time, as well as a constant energy, that one can probably overlook the fact that there is very little in the way of actual plot and that everything is resolved a bit too neatly. The greasy Franco and the effeminate Hill were good enough that I was happy I saw it in any case, and dozens of quotably funny lines smoothed out the wrinkles I saw when they weren't on screen.

I laughed a lot and I left happy, so I guess their job was done well. It wasn't as smart as it could have been, but the twist on an otherwise formulaic story was strong enough to grab my attention and keep it fixed on the screen long after it should have been.

3/4