Excellent raunchy action comedy

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2013)

Last night I viewed the raunchy action comedy, This Is the End, written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. For a comedy, it has a high rating on IMDb, and that only further fuelled my interest. At first, one might think, "Oh, another Seth Rogen-and-all-his -friends comedy." This film is more unique than his others, and has a lot more than pot smoking and the widely annoying Rogen "Huhhuhhuh" laugh. The apocalypse is happening while they work to conserve limited resources inside James Franco's house. This plot, combined with a lot of comedy, is a cool idea. All of the main actors go by their real names, giving the film a reality feel.
I want to say right away, that I let out a lot of laughs while watching this, and I'm not sure what rating I'd give it, but it will be a high one. I'll mention some scenes I've laughed at in a bit.
It begins with Rogen meeting Baruchel at a California airport, then heading back to Rogen's place while Rogen starts a conversation about his gluten free diet. A lot of comedy here, making fun of the gluten free fad a lot of people are on, even though most don't even know what gluten is. "Calories, that's a gluten; Fat, that's a gluten" Rogen confidently says, showing the comedic ignorance.
They get high at Rogen's place, then a headline, "Sinkhole in Guatemala" is briefly shown on Rogen's new 3D TV, foreshadowing what is to come. Rogen mentions going to a party at Franco's new house, and Baruchel reluctantly agrees to go.
There are a lot of funny scenes at the party before all of Franco's party goers feel the brunt of the apocalypse.
Michael Cera does a great job playing a coked out, on drugs actor. He goes up to Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and they have a friendly how's-it-going'. Then Cera blows a large amount of cocaine in Mintz-Plasse's face. "Shit Michael! I've never f**king done cocaine dude." Then he goes into a panic, worrying how he will react to the drug. Cera assures him that he will walk him through it.
Jason Baruchel walks in on Michael Cera and two women. It looks like Cera is getting a rim job and a blow job by the two women. Unfazed, and sipping from a juice pack, he says, "Hey Jay, you need to use the toilet, honey? Go ahead."
While playing a game of pool, Cera slaps Rihanna's ass. Angered, she slaps his face.
Great comedy from Cera. Not a main character in the film, but he really adds to it. I'm still laughing at the cocaine in Mintz-Plasse's face scene. I often think of Mintz-Plasse as Fogell from Superbad.
Baruchel and Rogen go to a convenience store and what appears to be an earthquake takes place. Beams of blue light shine down from the sky, lifting people through the beam, up and away. Scared out of their minds and wondering if they're hallucinating, they hurry back to Franco's house. Nobody at the house knows what the panic stricken Baruchel is talking about. "This place is a f**kin' fortress," Franco boasts. Baruchel tells Franco about people getting sucked into the sky. "Nobody got sucked up here," Franco says. A coked out Michael Cera proudly announces, "I got sucked off here," while raising his hand and waiting for a high five from the seemingly disgusted woman standing next to him.
The ground begins to separate, the party goers run outside, many falling into what looks like a bottomless pit. One character – I won't say who – gets impaled by a light post. There are other gory scenes, one involving a severed head being kicked around inside the house. Eventually it's just Franco, Rogen, Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride taking refuge inside the house.
Emma Watson – who was at the party earlier – shows up again later, asking if she can stay. A funny scene happens with the six males talking about making her feel comfortable, feeling safe from being raped. Watson overhears the conversation and mistakenly thinks they are talking about plans to rape her. She confronts them while wielding a fireman's axe, and robs them of all their drinks before taking off. Without anything to hydrate them, the six guys take turns breaking through the floor to retrieve two jugs of water. A must see scene. Lots of laughs here.
Franco later confronts McBride for ji*zing on his "nice magazine." Hilarious scene. "I have a particularly explosive ejaculate" McBride says, explaining why his ji*z ended up on the magazine. "You didn't learn to ji*z in a f**king sock or on a f**king tissue?" Franco angrily asks. McBride scoffs at Franco for designing a house with iPads in the walls, but jerking it like a pilgrim. A comment on porno mags becoming seemingly obsolete in todays internet age.
I can go on and on about the countless comedy dialogue in this film. Oh, and as is often the case in a Rogen film, there is a Jew joke. Jonah Hill becomes possessed and is talking in what might be gibberish. Franco wonders if it's Hebrew. Rogen explains that he's somewhat of an authority on Hebrew, having spent six years in Hebrew school, and that Hill is definitely not speaking Hebrew.
Raunchy and raw, with an ad libbed and realistic feel, this movie absorbs your mind as if you were at the party with the cast, sharing laughs even with the apocalypse happening outside. I'll be watching this film again, and soon. I'm going to give this comedy a 10 out of 10.