This Is The End

Think about how you might react if the world started crumbling around you. Would you face it with stoicism and dignity? Or would you resort to all manner of debauchery and unsavoury behaviour? Surprisingly – or not – a few of your well-known movie stars choose the second option in The Is The End, a wildly outrageous, gleefully dirty and unexpectedly thoughtful end-of-days comedy that mashes up Hollywood, heaven and hell. Seth Rogen and long-time writing partner Evan Goldberg (the pair penned Superbad and Pineapple Express together) make their directorial debut here, displaying a very pleasing sense of ambition and audaciousness alongside their trademark witty vulgarity. This Is The End has Rogen and his celebrity chums – the likes of James Franco, Jonah Hill and Danny McBride among them – portraying themselves, although it's likely we're seeing somewhat exaggerating versions of these stars... unless sweetly nerdy Michael Cera is in actual fact a sex pest with a yen for cocaine. They've all come together for a big bash at Franco's swanky Hollywood pad, but things get out of hand in all the wrong ways when beams of blue light start sucking people into the sky and the ground cracks open to unleash all manner of demonic torments. Alongside the fearsome doomsday scenarios and the comically awful reactions to said situations, This Is The End has some interesting (and hilariously profane) insights into the nature of friendship and character. After all, the good people of the world have apparently ascended to the afterlife. So why have Rogen and his pals – who seem to have it all – done so wrong to get left behind?

In cinemas now.