Martin Freeman, Simon Pegg, Rosamund Pike:'The World's End' review: A fresh, funny pub crawl (review)

SF GATE

Mick LaSalle

Updated 3:33 pm, Thursday, August 22, 2013

Nick Frost (left), Eddie Marsan, Simon Pegg, Paddy Considine and Martin Freeman play old friends on a drinking binge in "The World's End." Photo: Laurie Sparham, Focus Features

Comedy-adventure. Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Martin Freeman. Directed by Edgar Wright. (R. 109 minutes.)

One of the weirder aspects of adolescence is that it's possible to have close friends you don't like, that you're just thrown in with. In "The World's End," one of those friends comes back into the lives of his four former high school buddies, two decades later, hoping to re-create the most glorious day of his youth, an all-night drinking binge. And they give in to the force of his personality and agree to join him.

For about an hour, "The World's End" is the story of four settled men, in early middle age, dutifully following their old school friend from pub to pub. Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan are all talented actors, with Frost and Freeman particularly skilled in comedy, and together the five principals create the sense of men who have known each other for many years. The banter is effortless; the comedy flows.

Then the movie takes a turn into a rather unexpected direction, one foretold in the coming attractions trailer, and one that will probably be discussed in most reviews, but I won't do it here, because I enjoyed the surprise. To state it generally, the movie goes from a character study to something that is quite nutty, and yet it loses nothing in the transition. The characters stay vivid, the interaction essential, and the issues introduced remain on the table and continue to be developed. There's just this whole other crazy thing going on at the same time.

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