LOS ANGELES: After tackling zombies and killer cops, film director Edgar Wright melds British small town pub culture with a large scale alien invasion, an offbeat pairing that yielded “The World’s End.”
“The World’s End,” out in U.S. theatres on Friday, bookends a flurry of summer films dealing with global catastrophes, from Brad Pitt’s zombie-fest in “World War Z,” giant aliens versus giant robots in “Pacific Rim” or Seth Rogen and celebrity friends fighting the Biblical rapture in “This Is The End.”
Wright’s film follows washed-up alcoholic Gary King, who reunites with his high school friends in his hometown to complete what they were not able to as teenagers: the ultimate pub crawl, drinking at 12 pubs in one night.
Played by Simon Pegg, Gary is a flawed hero who is stuck reminiscing about his teenage glory days. He is faced with acknowledging his own arrested development and alcoholism as he and his friends discover an alien invasion and must overcome obstacles to complete their quest at The World’s End pub. “We have a lot of compassion for him, and even though he does some terrible things throughout the movie, at key points he makes the right decision,” Wright said. The film brings the British director back together with long-time collaborators Pegg and Nick Frost, who both starred in Wright’s earlier films “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.”–Reuters