Hollywood’s biggest comedians are all hell-bound assholes in This Is The End
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Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: Pixar’s Soul was supposed to hit theaters. In its absence, we’re looking back on other cinematic depictions of the afterlife.
This Is The End (2013)
Whether everyone in Hollywood is secretly an asshole has been a question pondered by gossip magazines, late-night TV shows, and blog blind items for decades. But Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s directorial debut weighs in very loudly on the topic. In This Is The End, nearly every famous person is immediately established as a repellent jerk, and not even the promise of eternal paradise can inspire them to be better. “Guys, I think this is sort of bullshit, because we’re all good people!” James Franco insists when he and his fellow actors realize they’ve been left behind after the rapture. But the gap between cluelessness and godliness is vast, and This Is The End mines a good amount of nasty humor from lightly fictionalized versions of celebrities in increasingly depraved situations as they yearn for absolution.
A satirical look at the selfishness and vapidity of the A-list, This Is The End was praised for its profane audaciousness when it was released in 2013, and for an unexpectedly delightful Backstreet Boys cameo. But before Nick, Kevin, AJ, Howie, and Brian start crooning, the film establishes some messy relationships. Longtime friends Jay Baruchel and Rogen (both playing themselves, as almost everyone in the film does) are growing apart. To help salvage the relationship, Baruchel begrudgingly accompanies Rogen to a party at James Franco’s house. Then the rapture begins, the apocalypse follows, and the two find themselves left behind and holed up with Franco, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, and a party-crashing Danny McBride. Together, they realize that their drug use, masturbation, cursing, and all-around hedonism—which is to say, the essential components of their star personae—is a big part of what kept them out of heaven.
Settling into its single-location format, This Is The End amps up the ridiculous antics of these friends and frenemies, escalating the behaviors and quirks we already associate with the actors and incorporating inside jokes regarding their filmographies. The script simultaneously celebrates goofy camaraderie (the group puts on a low-budget production of Rogen’s idea for Pineapple Express 2) and mocks Hollywood narcissism. The seesaw between the two extremes also informs the film’s philosophical angle. If everyone were nicer to each other, could that get them into heaven? It’s the slightest of sacrifices, and yet no one in the group seems able to do it. To a certain degree, This Is The End is making a subversive point: Even the promise of heaven isn’t going to change some people, and that’s both the beauty and the trap of free will. “Fucking civilization is broken down. There’s no more reason for this false bullshit!” McBride insists, and he may have a point: If you’re going to hell anyway, why not be as self-indulgent as possible while you’re still able?
Some of the film’s humor hasn’t aged terribly well. Rape is a common punchline. And too often This Is The End defaults to gay jokes, rather than explore the fears and other feelings the guys might have. But the film’s enduring appeal lies in how it affirms the worst of what so many assume about celebrities, and then suggests that if they can turn it around, maybe we all can. For a movie that otherwise revels in its offensiveness, it’s a surprisingly hopeful, even Christian message, assuring its audience that everyone, even celebrities, has the capacity for change. Except for maybe Michael Cera.
Availability: This Is The End is available to rent or purchase digitally from Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, and VUDU.
91 Comments
I was pleasantly surprised when I picked this as a late-night “sure, why not” choice on Netflix. I LOVED Franco and Rogen and Barcuchel because of F&G and Undeclared, but the general raunch comedy directions of their careers wasn’t for me.The Michael Cera bit is gold. PONTIAC BANDIT
The Michael Cera bit may be my favorite part of the movie.
Id go so far as saying he was the lone good bit
I slept on this for years because I found some of the people in it annoying to begin with (particularly Hill) and didn’t want to watch them be more annoying. What a dumb call. And Hill in particular is fucking hilarious!
Samesies. I was kind of over Rogen and Franco and I was not a fan of Hill. That’s changed post-WOWS but yeah, he really is great in this. I THINK it was my intro to Craig Robinson, prior to finally getting into B99. I enjoyed him a lot so I was very happy to meet DOUG JUDY. I was also happy to see Baruchel show up, because he’s never gotten to the same levels as the other dudes. Surprisingly good flick!
It is the end and the bastards have won for nowThey’ve won enough anywaySo that I’m too scaredTo let another person into my heartOr my personal spaceOr risk letting another’s crummy thoughtsMingle with mine for fearThey’ll somehow become my own.
Eventually, AV Club reviews will be *just* the trigger warnings about the parts that “haven’t aged well.” “Beware: the female characters in this movie fail to treat James Franco’s character as a sexually unacceptable creep. Scarlett Johansson’s character is never forced to repent for the actress’s sinful statements about trans representation. Characters of color are 24% under-represented. One scene is even an homage to a Woody Allen film, and it presented without explicit moral condemnation.” Basically Common Sense Media for the children of people who consult Common Sense Media. “Do not let your parents watch this movie. It will give them an insufficiently intersectional view of feminism.”
Gather all of your electronic devices together, drop them in the ocean, and spend the rest of your life making amends.
This movie’s seven years old, and feels newer than that. At this rate anything not made since March 2020 is going to be accused of having “not aged well.”
“The characters in this romantic comedy aren’t even wearing protective masks, are less than six feet of each other for the majority of the runtime, and even had the nerve to share a warm embrace at a few points! Terrible example to be setting for an impressionable audience. No doubt about it: this movie’s Pre-COVID privilege has aged very poorly!”-The even worse AV Club of the future
Sure, at the rate of your emotional breakdown, it’s possible you could perceive all sorts of things that won’t really happen.
keep crying
That’s so much dumbshit packed into just a two word comment.
Keep crying
You gave him a run for his money with your comment.
Not sure I see it that way there, Larry.
Whine less.
no u f*g
*i
**Fuck you
oh wow you’re triggered huh?
triggered
It does appear that some of you are, yes. But don’t worry, this is just the site for you. Maybe recognitions will even come pat you on the back.
You fell down in the comments section and threw a tantrum. Wipe off the snot, princess. I’ll have your mom come pick you up when we’re done.
Holy shit — now you’re doing the real life Dril tweet bit!
I have no idea what that means.
You’re a prissy schoolmarm of a man, aren’t you?
Your strawman rebuttal is triple the length of the actual ink spilled on the subject so maybe *just* chill on the hyperbole.
If this is how you to literally two sentences in an otherwise glowing film review, I’d sure hate to see how you react to an actual problem!
wow the rare mega-loser.
Ding ding ding.If we’re this far gone into the self-policing, I can only imagine what the next generation will be…
Your whining was about twice as long as the three sentence passage in the article you were complaining about.You fucking putz.
Oh, it’s the very first article you’ve looked at on the site? Later you’ll understand that they do that same thing in everything they ever post.
PS you can bite my taint.
Yes, how dare a critique on a pop culture website put an artwork into cultural context!
I am nostalgic for the 1970s ‘social justice’ Feminism of Steinem and and Friedan. These days Feminism has gone conservative (though they’d never admit to it), its basically female chauvinist bullying. The book ‘Lean In’ was little more than a tutorial for women on how to be a self-entitled country-club Republican.
I mean that’s just white feminism, which has always had a “get a seat at the table, why can’t women also be fighter pilots” type of mentality. Intersectional feminism was always more than that (check out the Combahee River Collective – https://combaheerivercollective.weebly.com/) for a feminism that doesn’t just end at “we need more she-e-o’s”.
Fun fact: the characters weren’t the only assholes involved in this movie. One of the producers of the original short film (Jay and Seth vs the Apocalypse), a woman, was intentionally excluded when the deal for this film was inked. The way I’ve heard the story, they were all friends, but having someone go behind your back to get a multi-million dollar movie made will create a rift, to say the least.
This is genuinely boring information. It’s so boring I note you had to add “a woman” to make it seem even slightly interesting. Fuck producers. They eat their young.
I’ve only seen bits and pieces but based upon the cast, it just looked like “awkward behavior, the movie.” Am I wrong on this?
No way man this movie is essential viewing for anyone who has a modicum of real fun. Watching Danny McBride make the breakfast is maybe the funniest thing in the movie.
It’s a lot more plot driven and scripted than that. And the way it depicts celebrities is often pretty clever – James Franco apparently has no problem owning his reputation as a pretentious douchebag. You wouldn’t expect a Rosemary’s Baby parody that turns into an exorcism supblot culminating with a Jewish guy trying to perform an exorcism, but there it is.
OK, now that sounds intriguing. The trailer looked like a bunch of standard issue reaction shots and yelling.
I mean, plenty of that too. I found it pretty grating, tone wise. Felt like an extended Oscars skit with too much swearing tossed in
It’s that too, but it gets pretty nutty at times.
Should’ve commented down here — that was my impression, and the awkward yellers included people I didn’t really care for in the first place, so I didn’t watch this until last year. Huge mistake, as MiFroChi says there is some solid writing here and more to the point it is just hilarious all the way through. Definitely worth checking out.
For real, the day this scene stops being funny is the day the body snatchers have won:
Danny McBride stole every scene.
I saw this in the theater, barely remember a thing from this movie, but I do remember nearly falling out of my seat as this escalated.
“I’ve already walked away too much” Class McBride.
My wife and I still use that line on each other!
“It’s too late Seth, I’ve already walked away too much!” This line has inspired many an end to an argument in my house.
“you don’t have enough bullets, bitch” is maybe the greatest comeback of all time.
“I grew up in a house of women!” is my favorite part of the whole thing.
The Michael Cera part and the ending with the Backstreet Boys make this movie worth watching.
Funny how you can say that something from just seven years hasn’t aged well, but that’s how much society has changed in the last few years.
Not really. I mean, in 2013 we also had “The World’s End”, a similarly themed Simon Pegg/Nick Frost comedy which has aged far better. Most comedies which are actually funny haven’t used gay panic jokes this century.
The Worlds End is so fucking good. If I ever do a pub crawl I’m going to shout fuck off back to Legoland proudly.
I’ve really gotta watch The World’s End again – bit overshadowed by the other Cornetto Trilogy films but I did enjoy it quite a lot first time around – Simon Pegg really excel’s in his role as Gary King (I think that was the character’s name), I was surprised at how far he took the part of a drug-addled man-child; it really was quite sad.
This is the End was fucking woeful though, hated it, not sure I even finished it. Nothing worse than Hollywood actors ‘in on the joke’ ..
Gary King is correct. I do love see Pegg play the horrible man child and Nick Frost be the grown up.
Pegg’s always had a bit of acting range to call upon, but I reckon his role in The World’s End is probably the best thing he has done, acting-wise …Nick Frost against type was interesting, but he is just such a funny dude that it was a bit of a shame to see him playing it so straight ..
yeah, should have switched roles, really. but you have to respect trying something new
Aw, I think Frost is fantastic here, especially when he gets to let loose. He is a big dude who generally plays a softie but his physicality is impressive when he wants to be menacing (he reminds me a bit of George Wendt), I’d like to see him do that more.
hmm, well as I originally said I’d like to watch The World’s End again; unlike Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz I’ve only seen the former once … willing to look at Frost’s role again with fresh eyes – I love him, just his out-takes alone from the first two Cornetto Trilogy films are hilarious in their own right ..
Oh, he’s definitely hilarious there (and in Spaced). World’s End is interesting in how it reverses the normal Pegg/Frost dynamic, Pegg is the fuckup and Frost not only has his shit together relative to his partner, he has it together in general and is content with that. It’s a big shift but he plays it very well.
walking a truly unsatisfying middle ground of “wouldn’t it be great to watch these terrible people be consumed by righteous destruction” and “these people are your funny heroes and aren’t you amazed by how funny and good they are”
“The World’s End” is terrible and inevitably you can’t talk about either “This is the End” or “World’s End” without the other coming up.“World’s End” is about 15 minutes of a very funny, insightful midlife crisis comedy married to a bottom-rung Doctor Who episode. The second the aliens appear, the movie turned to pure crap.
I’ll admit that “World’s End” is the weakest of the Cornetto trilogy, but I think you are missing the point of the movie. The whole point of the trilogy is to mix social commentary with various genres (zombies, cop buddy movies, and sci-fi). You couldn’t have the movie without the aliens any more than you could have Shaun of the Dead without the zombies.
In Shaun of the Dead, I really liked how the story about Shaun’s slacker lifestyle and Liz dumping him was engaging and funny enough that the zombie outbreak could just unfold in the background for about half an hour. The second act is a departure but also inevitable.The World’s End is built around a second-act twist – they drop hints about the aliens, but there’s a very clear break where the movie shifts from comedy to action-comedy. I was a little let down about thirty minutes in when I remembered there was going to be a genre plot, and it wasn’t just going to be two hours of jokes about lintels and Alexandre Dumas with one of the most enjoyable casts ever. That said, it’s probably the best depiction of alcoholism in any action-scifi-comedy ever. I like Hot Fuzz just fine – it’s funny and clever. But I’ve never had much affection for 90s gun/splosion action movies, so the homage was kind of lost on me.
I know that’s the point of these films, but World’s End does it so very, very badly. Which is why I wish they didn’t resort to the dumbass genre mash-up this time, since the scenes in the beginning had legitimate pathos to them and then we got the positively dreadful alien subplot and then more pointless, 11th hour “commentary” on how stifling British bourgeoisie middle-class life is (which was done so much better in Hot Fuzz.)It’s a really bad movie.
I find “The World’s End” to be the best of the trilogy because of the tonal shift. To me, the introduction of the aliens cements Gary as the ultimate unreliable narrator, who creates this sci-fi fantasy to block out the results of his alcoholism. The fact the aliens show up directly after the rest of the group finds out that he lied about his mum’s death indicate that he created this alternate retelling to shield himself from the truth; his lies got exposed, and everyone left him in disgust.
Interesting take, but in no way is it remotely supported by the text. You might as well say, “Everything that happens in Star Wars after Luke is told by his uncle that he’s not going to the Academy is Luke’s dream about what his life could be like if only his uncle was murdered.”
I mean, thats your taste. I thought This is The End was fairly insufferable after the pit opened up.
I really want to vehemently disagree with this post.But I really can’t.
I liked the Sisters of Mercy stuff, though.
I vehemently agree with your non-disagreement.
The other apocalypse movie from around this time, It’s A Disaster, is very funny — calling it the indie film This Is The End is accurate but short-changes how cutting it is, the people involved are not as grotesque in their bad behavior as the boys here but they’re more misanthropic without thinking so.
Pretty sure recognitions hasn’t seen this film as they would have spontaneously combusted in any attempt to do so.
Danny McBride is hilarious in this. The perfect foil.
I always did wonder why Emma Watson was left behind.
Good question. Sadly, this was one of her better roles. As I’ve said before, this movie has one of my most favorite people in the world (Emma Watson) hitting one of my least favorite people in the world (Seth Rogen) in the face with a shovel.
That scene is funny but yeah what did she do? Is her charity some kind of scam in this universe? Did she stab some stagehand on the set of Half Blood Prince? I’m personally not a fan of her but not to the point of thinking yeah she’s going to hell.
Pretty sure that’s the joke.
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one of the best comedies of the 21st century. not of all time, just this century…so calm down.
I think I literally forgot this movie was on while I was watching it.
as much as the gay-panic jokes rub me the wrong way channing tatum’s cameo was hilarious.
I call him Taint-um.
What’s the ranking for the Franco-Rogen trilogy?Pineapple Express > This is the End > The Interview?
I thought this movie was awful.
you are not alone.
i get why people like it, but oooooof, this was not for me.
If these are Hollywood’s biggest comedians, that explains why I haven’t enjoyed many comedies in the last decade or so.
“And too often This Is The End defaults to gay jokes, rather than explore the fears and other feelings the guys might have.”
Can’t think of a more unfair claim to level against the work of these people specifically, including this movie.
“Fears and other feelings” is pretty much the basis for Seth Rogen’s entire filmography, so I call bullshit.