The World's End ***

Edgar Wright co-wrote and directed this Comedy. Watch Preview. Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike. Rated R for pervasive language including sexual references. Running time is one hour and forty-nine minutes.

 20 years after attempting an epic pub crawl, five childhood friends reunite when one of them (Pegg) becomes hellbent on trying the drinking marathon again.

As someone who watches and appreciates a great deal of British TV and cinema, this was a real pleasure. I'm familiar with most of these actors and a couple of them, (Pike in Jack Reacher) and (Marsan in TV's Ray Donovan) should be familiar to many Americans. It's the dialogue quality and timing I find so attractive in many British productions and this has both in spades. The film covers what happened in the lives of the five college friends over a twenty year period, has them reconcile their differences, and then turns into a sci-fi film with the five combating alien robots who are trying to prepare humans for galactic citizenship. It sounds farfetched, I know, but it works, and very entertainingly so. This is the third film in a trilogy featuring most of this cast (Shaun of the Dead and
Hot Fuzz are the earlier two).

There are no additional scenes once the final credits begin. Screen size is unimportant. Theatres/Times.