The World’s End (2013)

Damn, I love Edgar Wright but this one didn’t work for me for lots of reasons. In the first third, Simon Pegg’s usual brilliance felt miscalibrated–he was pitched off-key relative to the other performances in a way that I found irritating (rather than irritating and lovable, which I would have wanted.) In the middle third, the fight sequences dragged for me, and the hyperkinetic editing lost the humor that Wright can often find in quick cuts. Then in the last third, the science fiction bits were just sort of silly and I stopped caring. Really bizarre ending. All that said, I love seeing Eddie Marsan (and “King Gay” made me laugh so hard I woke my wife up) and a lot of the Edgar Wright flourishes I usually love were still here. It just wasn’t quite up to the level that I’ve come to expect.