Saturday 21 June 2014

The World's End - Blu-ray Review

I don't get to go to the cinema very often and, if I'm honest, I begrudge the cost of the entry. Thankfully over the years I've become a pretty good judge of what I like - so I'm able to blind-buy every film I watch.

So, although my reviews may be a little late it's still new to me.

When I'm doing my cross stitch I like to watch TV. My preference is to watch things I've seen before, because I spend most of the time looking down at my stitching. Yesterday I did 12 hours of stitching and watched 12 episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series and 1 episode from Season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

After that amount of stitching I just wanted to watch something. I'd bought The World's End a couple of weeks ago in CeX (CeX is a trade-in store to anyone from outside the UK).

I'm not a huge fan of British humour (so lynch me!) but there is something about the combination of Edgar Wright (Director/Screenwriter), Simon Pegg and Nick Frost that just hits a sweet spot in my funny bone.
Sean of the Dead is one of my all-time favourite films and I thought Paul was brilliant; but the mixed reviews for The World's End really gave me pause. So I waited for the price to drop.

And so, with the wait over, I sat down to watch this last night. After a worrying first few minutes, during which I was thinking I'm going to hate this! the film (and it's actors) seemed to find the rhythm and style.

Five mates go on a monumental pub crawl - a crawl they failed to complete in their teens. The plan for four of them is to reminisce but the fifth (Simon Peg) has deeper motives.
The five guys are every type of misfit you've ever met in your life - and as such are identifiable and easy to sympathise with. But, this is definitely Simon Pegg's film. His fearless portrayal of Gary King is faultless and mesmerising; one moment having you laughing and the next crying.
As the pub crawl progresses the guys start to realise there is something seriously wrong in their old hometown - and it's there that the film sideswipes you with a curve ball. A brilliant, utterly ridiculous, curveball that just elevates the film into excellence.

I'm not going to ruin that surprise - just in the hope that you don't know.

I loved this film. I shouldn't have to be honest. Upon reflection it's really NOT my style of humour, but I found myself laughing many times.

The extras on the blu-ray are pretty good too. I watched the Outtakes (which go on a bit) and the Making Of (which was very interesting). Apparently there is 90 minutes of extras exclusive to the blu-ray.
The picture and audio were stunning throughout.

Oh, by the way, don't expect my reviews to be full of technical jargon about depth, bitrates or other such stuff. It's boring to read and most people have now idea what it's all about so I can't be bothered to write about it! Also, there are loads of sites out there dedicated to delivering professional, in depth, reviews. My reviews are just my thoughts and for a bit of fun.

3 comments:

  1. Not seen this one yet but I'm putting it on my To Watch list. I'm lucky as being British I do get the sense of humour LOL!

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  2. Found you through FB and just had to :) when I read this post. I watched this movie on Friday night. Like you at the beginning I thought, oh well, at least it was a Netflix rental. It turned out to be a very enjoyable movie.

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  3. Welcome to my blog Kathy! Glad you enjoyed the film too!

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