Good Concept, Some Good Jokes, But Not Really a Movie.

Rating: 5/10 (24 June 2013)

This is the End plays less like a real movie and more like the longest video ever featured on Funny or Die. Imagine if Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd had played themselves in Ghostbusters, add in a TON of dick jokes, toss in the inspired Danny McBride, remove virtually all plot, reduce the maturity and intellectual levels of the all-male thirty-something cast to that of 15 year old virgins--and you've got this movie.
There are a lot of good ideas here, but this is strictly first draft stuff. Rogan and company should have worked with a REAL screenwriter who could give the movie a real story and help to flesh the characters out a bit (I mean, are we really to believe that not ONE of these successful GROWN UP male comic actors has a wife or girlfriend? That THEIR ONLY relationships are with each other, like they are all 15?). This is the rare occasion when at least SOME studio intervention would have helped, as Rogan is apparently too inexperienced a story teller to know what to keep and what to toss.
The middle sags especially, with one disconnected, overlong improvisation after another doing little more than filling time. Only Danny McBride really excels at this type of thing, and he's kind of the "Richard Pryor in Silver Streak" element in this--not really the star, but easily the most memorable player).
The offhand comments by Rogan and Craig Robinson are funny, but are better used to complement actual dialog, not replace it. And the over-reliance on this kind of dick-joke mumblecore is what almost kills the movie.
But if you're a huge fan of even half of these guys, the movie is worth it. I watched many a bad flick back in the old days just because it starred John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Cheech and Chong or one of the Monty Python gang. But this should have really gone the direct-to-video fans only route.