This Is The End (Film)
There's a scene in This is the End where the lead characters create a home-video sequel to Pineapple Express. The result, unsurprisingly, is badly made, badly executed and self indulgent. That's the gag. I'm all for a bit of self-deprecating humour however this has to work in context, and when the film itself is badly made, badly executed and self indulgent then the humour is lost.
I'm not saying This is the End is the worst film I've ever seen, I'm saying it's the worst THING I've ever seen.
Let me lay my cards on the table: I don't like any of the people in this. They're part of this new brat-pack of chic geeks but between them there are very few genuinely good films. I have no idea who Jay Baruchel is. Clearly I'm meant to, I'm meant to not only know his output but also intimate details of his personal life, in order to appreciate the endless barrage of in-jokes with which I am being slowly sodomised into submission. Yet I don't know who he is. What's worse is that I've seen him in a film in the last month yet his screen presence is so utterly non-existent that I'd forgotten I'd even watched him.
No such problem with Seth Rogan. I recognise him from Superbad, which was good, and then a succession of god-awful "improvised" comedies. Knocked Up was awful. The Green Hornet was awful. Ted was awful (go on, admit it, you know I'm right). Whereas I can ignore Jay Baruchel all too easily I have discovered I have an active dislike for Seth Rogan. Then there's Jonah Hill - no idea. Who is he? He's in The Wolf of Wall Street and is apparently quite good, but I really couldn't pick him out from a line-up, what has he done to make him famous, other than being friends with Seth Rogan. James Franco is, I suppose, the star, given that he's probably grossed the most, and by "grossed" I mean "earned" as opposed to what Rogan has built his entire career upon. Franco is a spectacularly poor actor: he was average in127 Hours, he was awful in Oz: The Great and Powerful and he even managed to be bad in the good Spiderman films. There's someone called McBride who I don't recognise at all and someone else whose greatest contribution is an excruciating "comedy" song called "Take Yo Panties Off", the same slogan he has across his T Shirt, partly obscured by a towel which he carries around for no explainable reason, presumably another in joke.
This legion of schmucks are supported by a glittering array of cameo appearances from people I vaguely recognise; Michael Cera and Christopher Minze-Plass are in it briefly, I don't like them either but they have, at least, made a couple of decent films between them. Rhianna is there, for some reason. All we need is Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider and I'm fairly certain the UN would have to get involved.
So we have the scenario of a party at Franco's house. We learn that our leads like to smoke weed and drink, and that they're regular guys and then we're subjected to them playing exaggerated, comedy version of themselves, acting like the most awful people you could possible imagine, presumably in an ironic attempt to show that they can laugh at themselves so, hey, they're just normal down-to-earth guys.
I hate them
All of them.
The comedy pinnacle comes as a conversation about raping Emma Watson. Hilarious. Rape as a comedic device. But it's OK, because it's ironic. It's all just so fucking ironic. Later on, Jonah Hill prays for Baruchel to die and, guess what, in an ironic twist, Hill himself is raped by a demon. Oh the hilarity of rape! The rape is ironic, the characters are ironic, the story is ironic. This films is so smug, self-satisfied and self important that it makes my teeth hurt.
Half an hour from the end I turned off because I thought I had actually died and gone to hell. This film is what happens if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite volume of cocaine and ask them to make a film about themselves.
It's just shit.
I'm not saying This is the End is the worst film I've ever seen, I'm saying it's the worst THING I've ever seen.
Let me lay my cards on the table: I don't like any of the people in this. They're part of this new brat-pack of chic geeks but between them there are very few genuinely good films. I have no idea who Jay Baruchel is. Clearly I'm meant to, I'm meant to not only know his output but also intimate details of his personal life, in order to appreciate the endless barrage of in-jokes with which I am being slowly sodomised into submission. Yet I don't know who he is. What's worse is that I've seen him in a film in the last month yet his screen presence is so utterly non-existent that I'd forgotten I'd even watched him.
No such problem with Seth Rogan. I recognise him from Superbad, which was good, and then a succession of god-awful "improvised" comedies. Knocked Up was awful. The Green Hornet was awful. Ted was awful (go on, admit it, you know I'm right). Whereas I can ignore Jay Baruchel all too easily I have discovered I have an active dislike for Seth Rogan. Then there's Jonah Hill - no idea. Who is he? He's in The Wolf of Wall Street and is apparently quite good, but I really couldn't pick him out from a line-up, what has he done to make him famous, other than being friends with Seth Rogan. James Franco is, I suppose, the star, given that he's probably grossed the most, and by "grossed" I mean "earned" as opposed to what Rogan has built his entire career upon. Franco is a spectacularly poor actor: he was average in127 Hours, he was awful in Oz: The Great and Powerful and he even managed to be bad in the good Spiderman films. There's someone called McBride who I don't recognise at all and someone else whose greatest contribution is an excruciating "comedy" song called "Take Yo Panties Off", the same slogan he has across his T Shirt, partly obscured by a towel which he carries around for no explainable reason, presumably another in joke.
This legion of schmucks are supported by a glittering array of cameo appearances from people I vaguely recognise; Michael Cera and Christopher Minze-Plass are in it briefly, I don't like them either but they have, at least, made a couple of decent films between them. Rhianna is there, for some reason. All we need is Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider and I'm fairly certain the UN would have to get involved.
So we have the scenario of a party at Franco's house. We learn that our leads like to smoke weed and drink, and that they're regular guys and then we're subjected to them playing exaggerated, comedy version of themselves, acting like the most awful people you could possible imagine, presumably in an ironic attempt to show that they can laugh at themselves so, hey, they're just normal down-to-earth guys.
I hate them
All of them.
The comedy pinnacle comes as a conversation about raping Emma Watson. Hilarious. Rape as a comedic device. But it's OK, because it's ironic. It's all just so fucking ironic. Later on, Jonah Hill prays for Baruchel to die and, guess what, in an ironic twist, Hill himself is raped by a demon. Oh the hilarity of rape! The rape is ironic, the characters are ironic, the story is ironic. This films is so smug, self-satisfied and self important that it makes my teeth hurt.
Half an hour from the end I turned off because I thought I had actually died and gone to hell. This film is what happens if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite volume of cocaine and ask them to make a film about themselves.
It's just shit.
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