One long, egotistical dick-waving contest that thinks rape is a joke. Avoid!

Rating: 1/10 (10 June 2013)

This is the End? I wish! Actually, what this is, is one long dick-waving contest starring a bunch of loud, egotistical 'stars' with money, influence, little sense and producers who are too wimpish to point out that what they've produced lacks plot, cohesion, reason or humour. This is the End is one weak plot line away from a Movie 43 rating of zero stars.
It's crass, loud, overwritten, not for Christians or admirers of quality and good taste. Mostly it just isn't funny, not unless you think you'll split your sides as a group of loud, brash morons argue about not raping Emma Watson.
Rape as a joke? Yup, that's the level!
The interminable opening scene, where they (directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg) introduce us to all the stars who play themselves and we lose the will to live, is saved only by Michael Cera, the solitary person on screen capable of playing a pastiche of himself that is remotely amusing. It's an agonizing ten minutes that aged me by ten years. When it finally gives way to the apocalypse implied by the title there are five minutes of fun, enjoyable effects and the suggestion of an action-packed, funny romp. And then it thuds to depths far beyond those where Rhianna et al end up.
The row I was in probably spanned the ages of 16 and 60 and I don't believe any of us laughed once. About 25% of the audience found it occasionally amusing and a group of three lads behind us clearly thought it was the funniest thing they'd seen all week. Either they had snorted the contents of a small country or someone lobotomizes the locals.
This is the End, which is asking for trouble with a title like that, is less funny than inhaling someone else's belch. The 'jokes' for the most part shouldn't have started and sure as hell didn't know where to end. Everything is elongated and has the feel of lazy writing, even lazier direction and protracted, narcissistic improvisation with no one to reign it in.
My head hurts. Make it end.
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