You want an iconic film for 2013? This is it. This Is the End is the one people will talk about decades from now like we talk about Animal House. Ok, maybe a little more like we talk about Dumb & Dumber — but don’t discount the legacy here. This is a film drunken y-chromosome cursed folk will lovingly rehash for years and years to come.
Jay Baruchel, as Jay Baruchel, has come to visit Seth Rogen, playing … Seth Rogen, in L.A. Jay’s timing kinda bites for two reasons: 1) Seth is committed to a party tonight at James Franco’s house where Hollywood phonies will be as common as palm trees and 2) The rapture has come. Yes, the actual rapture — fiery pits of Hell destroying carefully manicured front lawns, demons walking the Earth looking to claim the unworthy and no cell phone service … ever again. Aaaaaahhhh!! The citizens of this planet have been divided into groups of the good, the bad and the pretty. The good have risen in glowing light; the wicked have been engulfed to Hell below; who remains? Actors. Ha!
That’s just classic, like the time in St. Elsewhere when Howie Mandel discovers Purgatory is replete with NFL refs. Howie? St. Elsewhere? Nothin’? Oh, screw you. That was MUST SEE TV when I was a teen.
The pre-rapture Franco party is hilarious; it’s like name-dropping in visual form, and then endearing in disgusting ways — as the moment when Baruchel accidently walks in on Michael Cera stripped from the waist down with a kneed strumpet workin’ on either end. Cera’s reaction? “You want to use the bathroom? That’s OK.” Before long, we are down to a select few – Franco, Rogen, Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Danny 
McBride. All of the actors seem to be having a blast paying caricatured versions of themselves. Franco’s heated argument with McBride over who soiled the world’s last remaining Penthouse is an argument you might just repeat at some point, again and again and again. I did mention this was R-rated, yes? Oh, it’s really, really R-rated.
Before long, the strays are forced to realize this isn’t about mere survival. It takes them a while to get there – they are actors after all. The revelation of unworthiness is striking. Craig Robinson pleads aloud, “We make people happy …” I love the delivery of this line, as if Craig actually believes that the voicing of said truth will, by itself, instantly make the heavens expand for he and his colleagues to stroll on in unimpeded. “Oh, I forgot about that,” says God, allowing all actors from Tawny Kitaen to Richard Kiel instantly into his kingdom. The correct response is offered up by Jay Baruchel, “we make a lot of money.” That’s right, Jay; your work is not exactly altruistic.
This Is the End has no shortage of laugh-out-loud moments. The fates of James Franco, Emma Watson and Channing Tatum immediately come to mind, as does an extreme rarity these days: a funny exorcism scene. If you’re old enough to watch This Is the End and male enough to enjoy it, you’ll be Ted happy for years to come.
The end of days is quite the zoo
McLovin, Hermione and a Freak or two
Rudd and Tatum the Office fatigue
Also the guy who’s still not in her league
McBride, Rihanna and Cera-tops
Final judgment comes with many name-drops
Rated R, 107 Minutes
D: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
W: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Genre: Judging the fence sitters
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The starstruck
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: True believers
