THIS IS THE END

this-is-the-end

There’s over the top, and then there is This is The End. Very few films have made me laugh as hard, to the point of smearing my make up and leaving the theater looking like Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. First time director/long time writer Evan Goldberg (Superbad) and Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express) created a film that is entertaining and refreshing, to the point that I can only  describe it as “insanely creative”. Anything goes: from funny gore to crude jokes, there’s something liberating and exciting about watching a movie where you cannot predict at all what’s going to happen next. In a cookie-cutter-blockbusters filled summer, this film is a very welcomed addition.

The movie also benefits from the chemistry between its main characters, some long time friends from previous projects, others collaborators in films and TV shows, playing hilarious “alter egos” of their own celebrity personas among themselves. It also includes lots of A-lister’s in insane cameos, including Michael Cera, Rihanna, Paul Rudd and Emma Watson.

You can tell it was written by movie lovers, so if you are a film fan you will recognize spoofs and references from many features, and probably the funniest use of very well know soundtracks I’ve seen in a while.

This feature is an exercise in film writing on its own: is funny, intelligent and original, something that doesn’t happen often in comedies, since the studios prefer to rely in big name actors and cliche formulas than in new ideas on the genre. Part low-budget looking, part sci-fi, part action and definitively full potty mouthed, This is The End is the kind of project that you definitively don’t want to come to finish.