Saturday, June 22, 2013

This is the End

Plot: Seth Rogan and Jay Baruchel (playing themselves) go to a party at James Franco's house. After a few minutes, there are earthquakes, fires, and huge sinkholes. Seth, Jay, James, and several other actors barricade themselves inside the house, but demonic forces continue to attack as the biblical apocalypse plays out.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: This is the End is different and clever. It was generally fun-to-watch, and many of the jokes were outrageous or gross. This often very funny, but it was entirely "boy humor,"  heavily misogynistic and homophobic. The sodomy jokes and homosexual rape jokes got repetitive.

I liked how the characters were playing themselves, and this was even funnier for the cameo characters doing outrageous things. How did they get Channing Tatum to take that part?

There was no attempt to make the world's destruction realistic as in an action movie -- always campy and therefore never scary. The soundtrack of oldies was unexceptional. 

While there was an over-arching message of loving one another, this was pretty dilute. Generally, this was a comedy without social dimension. 

Cast: Seth Rogan, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera, Emma Watson, Rihanna

Written and directed by: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Rating: 2.5 stars because I was glad I saw it, but not higher since it was pretty empty. 
 

More: The actors are playing characters based on themselves, and this give the movie some realism that isn't there in The Hangover Part III for example. 

Even More: I can believe how James Franco dies. I never expect that!
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