Comedy may be in the eye of the beholder but chances are unless you’re a bonafide fuddy-duddy you should find This Is The End hilarious and audacious, if crude and low-brow. What saves it is the running joke of filmstar comedic actors playing themselves. Celebrity culture may never have been lambasted this believably. Throw in a well-timed horror motif as a credible backdrop and there’s a fine balance of “real’ horror and what looks like a lot of improvised fun from six talented leads. Seth Rogen (who also co-directed with Evan Goldberg), James Franco, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, and Craig Robinson all fearlessly out-indulge one another. (It’s hard to pick a favorite but McBride really kills.)
Baruchel visits pal and fellow Canadian Rogen for a little relaxation only to find himself dragged to a party at the house of Franco. Emma Watson, Rihanna, Channing Tatum, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Kevin Hart, Mindy Kaling and a hilarious Michael Cera (who’s a real lothario here) are hopping around the party. A supercilious Hill, who rubs Baruchel the wrong way, trys to ingratiate himself to him. Time for a stroll to grab some munchies, Baruchel tells Rogen and the two embark on an innocuous-seeming jaunt interrupted by what turns out to be a, er, natural disaster?
Not so fast. We’ve got sinkholes leading to fiery pits of lava and blue beams leading to the heavens, Rapture-style. Destruction reigns. Skedadalling back to Franco’s crib, the duo meet their four brethren, watch Cera endure a cringe-worthy fate, and before you know it everyone else has either split or vanished. Then the four begin a survival odyssey, using their rationed household stuff like so many props of hanging fruit and their innate cameraderie like so much of a twisted guilty pleasure. Before long a horned devil with flailing genitalia will be menacing poor Hill, who’ll subsequently be in need of an exorcism. Book of Revelation metaphors galore will meet this mock-documentary square on, while Rogen and Goldberg (co-writers of Superbad) explore the vagaries of male bonding gone apeshit.
Hysterical trashiness prevails. The audience mostly roars; a few walk out. Sloppy, juvenile lunacy–what more do you want? I doubt there’ll be a comedy as uproarious the rest of the year.
4 Tastelessly Insane Stars (out of 5)