The Green Cornetto: In Defence Of The World's End

Why Does Nobody Like The Green Cornetto?: In Defence of The World's End

It's always hard for the last film in a trilogy, even one as loose as the Simon Pegg-Edgar Wright 'Cornetto' series, to live up to the standard of a beloved first two. The Godfather 3 famously stuttered where the others shone, Spider-Man and X-Men third films were less fun and less coherent than their super predecessors. And The Matrix was becoming obsolete by the time Revolutions came round. Following the genre parody brilliance of Shaun Of The Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), the creative triumvirate of Pegg (writer and star), Wright (writer and director) and Nick Frost (increasingly important star) were always going to find it hard to recreate the magic. But I argue that they did, and in doing so created a film which has richness and depth where the other two have light familiarity. Harder to love, but more rewarding for the effort.

Shaun is a lovingly crafted parody of zombie survival movies seen through the eyes of distinctly unheroic characters. It both uses and undermines a familiar formula beat-for-beat, adding a level of detail and directorial flair to set it apart from the endless 'spoof' cycles we're bombarded with. Fuzz did largely the same thing with the buddy cop movie. A sub-genre, the best examples of which include Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, Bad Boys, are heroic, large scale action films normally set in Los Angeles or San Fancisco where a mismatched pair end up taking down some pretty serious criminals. The genius of Fuzz is that it takes that formula and transplants it to rural England, replacing the criminal mastermind with a tooled-up neighbourhood watch. The scale is epic but the size is actually tiny. Your expectations as a viewer are both undermined and met at the same time, the effect being that these films are a lot better than some of the films they parody.

And so to The World's End, arriving 9 years after Fuzz and on the back of Hollywood success for both Pegg and Wright, the weight of expectation is worth noting. If Shaun was a fluke (it wasn't), and Fuzz a calling card to the rest of the world (it was), then The World' End was coming from a paid whose talent was well known and the question of 'what will they do next?' was an unfair burden on the film.

Is The World's End another genre parody? Yes and no. It broadly uses the alien invasion imprint, the best examples being Invasion Of The Body Snatchers 1956 or 1978), V (1984), a splash of They Live (1988) with a dash of Village Of The Damned (1960). It's a recognised genre and one with enough tropes to make it rife for parody, however while the other two delved straight in, The World's End waits until well into he 2^nd act before exposing the 'little green men' (who are actually blue). Ultimately, the film is more about a pub crawl than an alien invasion and more about friendship and growing up than it is about survival. A brave move, in my opinion, to make your subtext bolder than your narrative.

It's also a break from the pattern of straight genre parodies because it uses and subverts your expectations from the other two films, not just of a genre. Pegg and Wright are too smart a writing team to simply re-hash jokes from the other two films (hence they avoided the obvious 'you've got blue on you' line) but the film is stuffed with references to the other two, both overt and sly. From Wright's pint-pull extreme close ups to the hedge-jump, the film is littered with nods, hat tips and winks to the audience: rural police officer with little to do but traffic offences; town taken over by a usurping force, personified by a former Bond actor; pub-based fight scenes; out of place 'statues'; the pub presented as the place to go to resolve problems; the 'blanks' are effectively zombies, defeated by impact from a blunt instrument; hero's idea for how to survive? Head for the pub; themes of the importance of friendship, particularly in the face of a world that wants you to conform. There is more to this than just a writing style, more than just a few nods in order to appear 'meta' and certainly more than just lazy writing. No, Pegg and Wright are using your expectations of them, playing with them and often having some fun at your expense. They should be applauded for this; it would have been too easy for them to make 'From Dusk Til Shaun', so they didn't do it.

Another brave move which pays dividends is the Simon Pegg character. Pegg is likeable and charismatic; he just is the loveable loser Shaun in Shaun, shifting it up a gear to play honourable supercop Nicholas Angel in Fuzz. Here, he plays Gary King, a man whose development is so arrested it might as well be one of Hot Fuzz's NWA members. While his childhood friends are all major successes, he has spent 20 years living in the shadow of an incomplete pub crawl. He's vulgar, a lair, takes drugs and is ultimately an irritant early on, requiring the brilliant supporting cast to anchor the film in some form of recognisable humanity (co-drinkers Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan are all likeable and warm). In fact the film's first few minutes, a dazzling nostalgic montage, are arguably the weakest, such is the lack of identification we have with Gary 'fucking' King.

The film develops into an exploration of what is important to each character and ultimately all King wants in life is to complete the pub crawl which has eluded him for so long. We can't identify with him easily but what we can get behind is the pathos, which bleeds from him in an emotional final act where his vulnerability is revealed. It's a brave move to make your trump card an unlikeable character but Pegg nails it and the film is far better for it.

Finally, there are two scenes which set The World's End aside from the others in terms of pure emotional gut punch. Anyone with any experience of bullying will sympathise with Eddie Marsan's Peter Page character and his monologue in Pub No. 4, following an encounter with the former school bully. Ending with the line “he didn't even recognise me,” it gets me every time. It's a scene that would have seemed incongruous in either Shaun or Fuzz, but characters here are allowed room to breathe. In a film full of glib one-liners (“What the fuck does WTF mean?” being one of my favourites) and absurd slapstick, it's a moment of true human sympathy. Equally effective and affecting is the climactic moment where Gary King finally removes his coat to reveal his bandaged wrists; his line, “They told me what time to go to bed! Me! Gary King!” both explains his behaviour (he's an alcoholic) throughout the film and devastates Nick Frost's Andy and audience alike. It also neatly sums up the main theme: that it's ok to be a screw up in a world that wants you to toe the line and conform. Shaun and Fuzz work in similar territories but never do it this well, such is their dedication to formula.

So next time you're filling an evening with two British comedy classics, make room for the third and don't neglect The World's End. It may not have the instantly classic moments (kill Phil, pool cue smackdown, “Yarp”, that shootout) but it has zingers aplenty, a human heart and a brain to match the belly laughs. Cornetto, anyone?