The World's End is upon us – are you prepared?
In 2004, the world was treated to the great mind palaces Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg with Shaun of the Dead. While it seemed like an eternity, it was only short three years before we could stop wearing out the “Shaun” DVD and head to the cinema for Hot Fuzz, the second in what has now become known as the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, a.k.a. Blood and Ice Cream trilogy.
5 guys, 12 pubs, 50 pints…er, 60 pints
Now, just a short 6 years later, Wright and Pegg have completed the Bermuda Triangle of movie trilogies with, perhaps the best of all three, The World’s End, which finds its way to U.S. theatres today. Gary King (Simon Pegg), the British equivalent to Matthew McConaughey’s character from Dazed and Confused, continues to be haunted daily with the thought that he and his five closest high school buddies never completed their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier. To rectify the situation, unshaven, never gonna grow up, substance-abusing Gary, seeks ‘closure’ when he attempts to get the band back together, “…just like the Five Musketeers,” he notes, to conquer the Golden Mile once and for all.
What ensues can be safely described as the pub crawl from hell as Wright and Pegg clearly let it be known that all those bittersweet coming-home films are pure fantasy as, in the case of the quaint little hamlet of Newton Haven, you can never really go home again, especially since alien invasion seems to have entered the picture. We’ll leave it at that to avoid any more spoilers for those who haven’t seen yet…
Sadly, for those in the North Texas area, no theatres are showing the entire trilogy while a mere 200 miles south in Austin, no less than six locations will be treating moviegoers to the full Cornetto trilogy experience.
If you’re in the UK and have already experienced The World’s End, it might be time to grab a couple of muskateers and tackle the Golden Mile, minus the aliens, hopefully. While the town of Newton Haven doesn’t actually exist, it is possible to enjoy a pint of bitter or lager in some of the real locations from the film shot in Hertfordshire’s Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City. To get you started, the Radio Times‘ Jade Bremner has put together the Golden Mile film locations beginning with “The First Post” and ending where else but “The World’s End”.
The World’s End, starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike, opens in U. S. theaters nationwide today.
