This Is the End

 

Just last week, I reviewed a little movie called The Internship.  In my review, I lambasted that film's star and head writer, Vince Vaughn, for creating such a safe, generic, and uninspired star vehicle for himself.  I went on to ask why he didn't simply go for broke, instead of taking the bland and predictable route?  If he should ever need an example of what he should be striving for, Vaughn should look no further than This Is the End, a hilarious and devilish comedy that truly goes for broke in every sense of the word.  For his star vehicle, Seth Rogen (who not only stars, but co-wrote and co-directed the film) has not only made the funniest film of the year so far, but quite possibly the riskiest.

Anyone who has been reading my reviews knows that I am not always the biggest fan of Rogen.  While I have enjoyed him in some films (his performance in 50/50 remains my favorite of his), I more often than not find him irritating and unappealing as a lead actor.  I've always found him more suited to supporting roles, as a little of him usually goes a long way with me.  Here, he pulls off a neat little trick, as he is essentially playing himself.  Or rather, a caricature of himself.  The central gimmick behind This Is the End is that all of its stars (and this is a big cast, comprised mostly of Rogen's friends, or fellow co-stars who have appeared in his past films) are playing exaggerated variations of themselves, or their screen personas.  The stars in this movie are not just kidding themselves, but also their careers.  At one point, Rogen gets to poke fun at his own performance in his failed reboot of The Green Hornet.  With all these big name actors poking fun at themselves and their past misfires here, you get the sense that there was a lot of spiritual cleansing on the set.

As the film opens, Seth Rogen is reunited with his long-time friend and fellow actor, Jay Baruchel.  The plan is for a leisurely weekend of catching up, smoking weed, watching movies, and playing video games.  But then, Rogen recommends that they head over to James Franco's new house, as he's holding a big housewarming party with many of his celebrity friends.  Amongst the guests are Michael Cera (depicted here as a womanizing coke-fiend), Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame), Rihanna, and Danny McBride.  The party is in full swing, and everybody there is doing drugs, taking shots of alcohol, having sex, and basically doing all the horrible things we imagine celebrities do or get away with when they're not on camera.  Heck, these celebrities are so full into themselves, they don't even realize when the Rapture itself starts to happen right outside.

Well, Jay Baruchel notices, but that's only because he's the lead, and the "hero" of the picture.  He sees the people who have been chosen by God to ascend into Heaven getting pulled up into the skies in bright blue beams of light, while those who are left below prepare to face an eternity of suffering.  Nobody at the party even believes Baruchel when he tells them what he saw while he was making a beer run.  But then, the Earth itself opens up, revealing a fiery pit-like vortex, which pulls in almost all of the revelers at James Franco's house.  As the world around them literally explodes, and nearly every Hollywood celebrity is killed off in a comically violent way, the small band of six survivors hunker down in Franco's mansion, and plan to wait the apocalypse out.

Said survivors are Rogen, Baruchel, Hill, Robinson, Franco, and McBride.  Emma Watson survives too, just so there can be a hilarious scene where she breaks into their bunker with an ax, and steals all their provisions, having turned to looting in order to survive.  The six main survivors, meanwhile, have to find ways to keep themselves alive and their sanity in tact.  They ration up what remains of the food, and they find ways to entertain themselves, such as when Rogen and Franco film an unofficial sequel to their 2008 film, Pineapple Express, right there in the house.  There are complications, naturally.  Food and water eventually runs short, McBride starts to irritate everybody else in the house, and Jonah Hill becomes possessed by a servant of Satan at one point, which leads to the guys having to do a makeshift exorcism.  How he becomes possessed by the demon, I'll leave you to discover.  But, the lead in contains one of my favorite lines. "Are you there, God?  It's me, Jonah Hill.  From Moneyball".

With so many comedies playing it safe these days, This Is the End breaks tradition with a vengeance.  This is easily the hardest-R comedy I have seen in a while.  You can tell that this movie probably started as a huge in-joke between writers and directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.  Even as it grew into something much bigger, it never lost its original inspiration of allowing these actors to shamelessly parody themselves.  Right now, I find myself thinking back on Pain & Gain, another comedy featuring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, which allowed them to play against type as dim-witted, violent sociopaths.  That film was successful, because it was brave enough to show these actors at their worst.  This movie succeeds in much the same way.  It pushes its cast, makes them uncomfortable, and is all the better for it.  Comedy is always at its best when there is some form of risk involved.  And when we see James Franco poking fun at his own self-important image, or Channing Tatum making a cameo I'll leave you to discover for yourselves, we're grateful that these actors are brave enough to take the chance.

 

But what I most want to emphasize is that This Is the End is just a plain hilarious movie.  I laughed out loud a lot, more than any other movie so far this year.  With Man of Steel hitting on Friday, this could easily be drowned out amongst the hype.  I hope this doesn't happen.  While Zack Snyder's take on Superman has all the potential to be a lot of fun, I have the feeling that I'll be thinking back on this movie and chuckling to myself long after many of this summer's blockbusters have faded from my mind.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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