Aug 4-10  Stoner Comedy Week: I don’t gas reefer anymore, but I love it when people in movies do!

Gary King (Simon Pegg) is an alcoholic who wants to bring together his boyhood friends one more time to complete The Golden Mile, a pub crawl of all 12 pubs in their hometown of Newton Haven. In 1990, they failed, never reaching The World’s End. He gets estate agent Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), car salesman Peter Page (Eddie Marsan), architect Steven Prince (Paddy Considine) and lawyer and non-drinker Andrew Knightley (Nick Frost) to do this challenge by claiming that his mother is dying. They’re joined by Oliver’s sister Sam (Rosamund Pike) — who Gary and Steven have been in love with since school — just in time for Gary to knock the head off a teenage drunk and expose it as a robot. Soon, they realize that they’re surrounded by more of these replacement bots called Blanks, who want the entire world to join them. Oliver soon becomes part of them — even Gary’s old drug dealer, Trevor “The Reverend” Green (Michael Smiley), is a Blank — as our heroes continue the bar tour.

After much tragedy and not much triumph, Gary reaches The World’s End. Andy confronts him and reveals his troubled marriage, while Gary admits that he recently tried to end his own life. Andy tries to stop Gary from drawing his final pint, but as Gary pulls the lever, they are lowered into the Blanks’ base, where they are promised eternal life and told that this is the first step in humanity joining the rest of the universe. Sam, Gary, Andy and Steven argue for man to be left alone, leading to Earth being sent back to the dark ages and all power being removed, while the Blanks left behind are ostracized.

Things end better, though. Andy’s marriage gets better. Steven and Sam are in love. The Blank versions of Peter and Oliver are just fine. Gary is sober, drinking with younger Blank recreations of his friends, defending them when the bar won’t serve them beer.

Director and writer Edgar Wright was inspired by his own life, saying that he was tired of “…strange homogeneous branding that becomes like a virus. This doesn’t just extend to pubs, it’s the same with cafés and restaurants. If you live in a small town and you move to London, which I did when I was 20, then when you go back out into the other small towns in England, you go “Oh my God, it’s all the same!” It’s like Bodysnatchers: literally, our towns are being changed to death.”

The final film in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, it may be the one I’ve watched the least, but I liked it the best.