“No! Anything but ‘Funny Peoples,’ Judd!”
There’s a part of me that still thinks This Is The End — which opens today at Eastgate, Point, and AMC Star — would work better if it were directed by Judd Apatow. Heck, stick it between Knocked Up and Funny People, a final death rattle from the raunch comedy troupe that’s provided at least one writer with an annoyingly large amount of lines to quote. Apatow seems content to concentrate on the foibles of his own mid-life crises these days anyway. He might as well go out in style, pendulous demon phallus and all.
I digress. Instead, This Is The End marks the directing debuts of co-writers Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, the latter of whom also stars as “Seth Rogen” — or at least a self-effacing version of him. Rogen gets a weekend visit from real life pal Jay Baruchel, but the friends realize their career trajectories and varying success levels have jostled apart their friendship. The two attend a party at James Franco’s new ego palace where they run into Craig Robinson, a cloyingly nice Jonah Hill, and the perpetually devious Danny McBride. And then the Rapture comes. Except the apocalyptic comedy really isn’t about the impending end of the world as viewed through the narrow-mindedness of Hollywood elites. Rather, This Is The End refines it focus to the impending end of the world as viewed through the narrow-mindedness of celebrity man children.
The decision to downplay the personal struggles of rich comedians works in the film’s favor as it pokes fun at Pineapple Express and box office bombs like Your Highness using its own brand of genre comedy, one that plays less like a buddy cop or fantasy picture and more like a bleaker Ghostbusters. A sequence where the gang shoots a low-budget Pineapple Express sequel (which they dub “Blood Red” after McBride’s grungy antagonist) suggests everyone involved is in on the joke. What’s more, several moments from “Blood Red“ become realized throughout the course of the movie, a knowing wink that ultimately makes This Is The End more fascinating than hilarious.
Perhaps it is that aforementioned absence of Apatow in the director’s chair, but many bits feel painfully half-baked, regardless of their degree of likely improvisation from the actors. If the trailer’s “Michael Cera on blow” jokes weren’t an obvious indication, the gang deals in levels of self-parody that reach insane heights when they’re not riffing on masturbation etiquette; think the Cult of Neil Patrick Harris in the Harold and Kumar canon. To see Franco blow vast sums of wealth on lining his suburban mansion with hubristic paintings reduces the cast of This Is The End to the lovable idiots they play on screen, a sort of wish-fulfillment for many a fan. There is no profundity in jokes about pink eye or ending up a “lamp shade in some creepy apartment.” Maybe Seth Rogen really does smoke that much pot, and maybe Jay Baruchel really is that awkward. McBride’s characterization in particular embraces typecasting to a wonderful extreme.
Really, this is all about those extremes, and to spoil the degrees to which Rogen and Goldberg fully commit to their premise would ruin much of the fun. This Is The End has nowhere near the comedic replay value of Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Knocked Up, but it is a successful genre vehicle that mocks the trivial and superficial resumes many of its actors have cashed in on. It’s also a comforting assurance that even James Franco has some self-awareness left inside of him.