OK, this is the first comedy I've LOVED this year. As soon as I walked out of this movie, I wanted to see it again. But it's not gonna be for everyone - it's rude, crude and lewd. But hilarious!
This is the End is a film starring Seth Rogen as Hollywood comedy actor and writer Seth Rogen. His best friend Jay Baruchel (played by Jay Baruchel) still lives back in Canada but as a film writing partner for Seth he often visits Los Angeles where Rogen now lives. He's in town for the weekend to hang out with Seth, but Seth has agreed to go to a party at James Franco's house (they co-starred in Pineapple Express) and drags Jay along, much to his distaste as he really doesn't like Hollywood or Seth's new friends. James Franco (played by James Franco) and Craig Robinson (played by, yep, you guessed it, Craig Robinson who is probably best known for Hot Tub Time Machine) aren't too friendly to Jay, but Jonah Hill (played by Jonah Hill) is super nice to Jay, but only to please Seth. So yep, this is a movie where everyone is playing themselves, but allegedly these are "exaggerated" versions of what everyone thinks these famous people would be like. Which leads to much hilarity.
The first 20 minutes of the movie are outright hilarious, as Franco's party heats up and plenty of celebrities are happy to send themselves up. Michael Cera (Juno, Scott Pilgrim vs the World) is in top form and steals the whole movie as a complete asshole version of himself. Jay is struggling to break into the Hollywood crew and decides to take a walk to the nearest convenience store for smokes and snacks, convincing Seth to accompany him. There, a bizarre event occurs which feels like an earthquake to Seth but Jay thinks it is the apocalypse. With blue lights sucking people up into the sky, mass destruction and car accidents and the earth itself splitting, Seth and Jay decide to get back to Franco's recently built fortress for safety. Inside, nobody has a clue what's going on in the outside world. After hearing Jay's story, everyone runs outside which sets the scene for some very funny celebrity deaths as a sinkhole to hell opens up on the lawn. Our core crew (Jay, Seth, James, Jonah and Craig) become the sole survivors left barricaded in Franco's house as they try to figure out whether it is in fact the apocalypse or just some random act of nature.
Act Two is the survival period as the boys (augmented with Danny McBride who takes his annoying persona from Pineapple Express, 30 Minutes or Less and Eastbound and Down and dials it up to 11) try to figure out what the hell is going on, how they can ration the only food and water remaining and how they can find more supplies when they don't know what's out there. When they do eventually have to venture outside, we get a glimpse of some pretty nasty monsters that are roaming around. At this point, we still don't really know what's really going on. But the bickering is damn funny and so is the way they pass the time (I loved the 'sequel' to Pineapple Express that they make). This is where the jokes turn towards the gutter, but if you're fairly liberal minded and in the right mood, it's consistently funny and highly quotable.
Act Three I won't give away too much, but Franco's mansion is no longer safe and so forced to split up and venture out, we get a bit more action and a lot more explanation. There are actually a few scary moments as the boys deal with some demonic beasties (I jumped out of my seat at one point). But it stays funny and there is a late cameo that is absolutely hilarious.
The most interesting thing for me about this movie was wondering how close to real life the story and acting really are. This film was written and directed by Seth Rogen and his frequent writing partner Evan Goldberg, who just happens to be Seth's best friend since high school, still live in Canada and has confirmed in interviews that he does not enjoy coming to Hollywood to write with Seth and doesn't exactly love Seth's new friends in Hollywood. But since Evan is not an actor, they have subbed in Jay Baruchel to play the "Evan" character. But other than that, all these guys do know and work together regularly, and James Franco would have to be a pretty pretentious and yet laidback guy I'm sure. But very handsome, so I'll forgive him!
This is a 5 star comedy in my opinion. Our whole group all enjoyed it a lot and spent the drive home regurgitating the quotes and what we thought were the best scenes. A must-see if you're not easily offended.
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