A Revelation of Sorts
Jay Baruchel heads to LA to spend time with his old pal Seth Rogen catching up, playing games and getting stoned. It is why he isn't overly happy when Seth insists they go to a part at James Franco's as Jay isn't keen on Seth's new friends especially Jonah Hill. But personal issues have to be put to one side when first people are raised to the sky in bright tunnels of light, huge holes open up in the ground and the Hollywood Hills end up on fire. As Jay believes this is the rapture the group including Craig Robinson and Danny McBride must try and survive some really crazy shit.
There is a scene in "This Is the End" where a stoned Seth Rogen and James Franco discuss making a sequel to "Pineapple Express" and of course the ideas are out there and ridiculous. I kind of imagine that maybe that was how "This is the End" came to be with Rogen and his friends chilling out in one of their homes and in what ever haze they were in came up with this end of the world storyline where they end up trying to survive the rapture, dealing with horny devils, being eaten alive and a whole host of out there and frankly offensive ideas.
But there is more to "This Is the End" as Rogen and director Evan Goldberg not only persuaded a whole host of famous faces to appear but then had them in outrageous situations. As such we have Channing Tatum as a gimp, Michael Cera as a coke sniffing player who spanks Rihana and a whole lot more. Whilst some may say the whole end of the world storyline is fantasy I am sure some will agree the fantasy of seeing Rihana slap Cera is even better. And that is tame because joke after joke in "This Is the End" borders on offensive from scenes about urine drinking to Jonah Hill's encounter with a big dicked devil.
The curious thing about "This Is the End" is before I watched it I was expecting to find it not my thing as so many of the comedies with Rogen, McBride, Hill and their friends have ended up disappointing and unfunny. Yet I have to admit that I ended up enjoying this although I wonder whether that is more to do with the shock as to what they put into the movie rather than finding any of it actually that funny, although the scenes involving Michael Cera still make me smile just thinking about them.
What this all boils down to is that "This Is the End" entertained me a lot more than I was expecting and will revisit it again. But I do wonder whether the entertainment was purely the shock factor of what they put in the movie and what they got some actors to do rather than the actual humour.
