An affront to good taste

Rating: 2/10 (1 February 2014)

As I'm generally not inclined to use drugs and my cinema of choice is also not very lenient towards such stimulants, I went to watch this movie entirely sober and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Over a running time of 107 minutes, Seth Rogen and entourage take a toll on any lucid person's mind with This Is the End, a film explaining its one and only story arc in the title already, and is obviously the result of the exuberant intake of various narcotics.
To be fair, it takes until the second half of the film for it to fall apart completely, as the first part is just in the style of the average flick Rogen stars in – over the top, idiotic, and embarrassing, but at least smirk-worthy from time to time. After Emma Watson disappears again after a short and unnecessary cameo (that pertains to every single other cameo in the film, by the way) and the ominous foreshadowing of the title takes greater proportions though, there isn't anything to left to save This Is the End. Scatological humour, downright terrible special effects, unbearable cheesiness, and drugs and gore in superfluous abundance pile up to one of the hugest disappointments the film year 2013 has held for me.
Now when a bunch of celebrities meet up, dope themselves to mammoth highs, and then decide to have a whale of a time by making a fully ad- libbed film, who am I to bash them? It's just that the yield of this frenzy cannot possible be enjoyed as long as the same jag isn't reached by the audiences. Thus, if drugs aren't your cup of tea, This Is the End won't be either.