A 20-foot demon with glowing eyes, abyss-like fissures in the streets and funnels of blue light sucking the virtuous up to Heaven are signs of the Apocalypse \u2013 all while a motley crew of comics including Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and Jonah Hill (as \u2018themselves\u2019) cower in the tasteful environs of James Franco\u2019s Hollywood mansion. This Is the End also seemed, on paper, like a sign of the Apocalypse \u2013 a new high in the rampant narcissism that blights Hollywood comedy and the Facebook\/YouTube\/Twitter culture in general. Yet the film is surprisingly subversive, often fascinating and \u2013 in its foul-mouthed way \u2013 very funny.<\/p>\n
Rogen (who also co-wrote and co-directed) is an unusual comic. Comedy comes from reversal, arrogant characters taking a fall, braggarts using big talk as a fa\u00e7ade (Bob Hope comes to mind); if a comic hero\u2019s sympathetic he\u2019s usually a loser by society\u2019s standards, from Charlie Chaplin to Woody Allen \u2013 yet Rogen is a cocksure, successful character who never wavers, never gets his comeuppance and doesn\u2019t seem to care what society thinks, nor does he ever get challenged. He played a stand-up comic (loosely based on himself) in Funny People, and his act was desperately unfunny \u2013 yet that seemed to be irrelevant, and the film never called him on it. His success, and that of his cohorts, is presumably a case of his obsessions (smoking weed, mostly) matching those of his audience. Personally, I find him insufferable.<\/p>\n
Yet something happens in This Is the End. Playing \u2018Seth Rogen\u2019 seems to have freed Rogen to play an actual character, with flaws and some unsavoury details. First seen picking up Jay Baruchel (or \u2018Jay Baruchel\u2019) from the airport, Rogen is his usual cool dude \u2013 \u201cHey Seth Rogen! What up, man?\u201d calls out a fan \u2013 yet later, faced with the end of the world, he proves to be a coward and even betrays Jay, his supposed best friend. His fellow comics are equally dysfunctional (the film smartly uses Baruchel as the \u2018normal\u2019 one, an outsider in the Hollywood hothouse). Jonah Hill (or \u2018Jonah Hill\u2019) is a condescending sycophant, a do-gooder who\u2019s \u201cadopted an incontinent spaniel\u201d, and so full of himself he can\u2019t even pray without mentioning his Oscar nomination (\u201cDear God, it\u2019s me Jonah Hill \u2026 [pause] \u2026 from Moneyball\u201d). Then there\u2019s \u2018James Franco\u2019, a glad-handing hipster and pretentious pseud who loves to pontificate on Art. \u201cYour mum\u2019s p***y was the canvas,\u201d he tells Jay grandly; your dad\u2019s penis was the paintbrush \u2013 \u201cBoom! You\u2019re the art!\u201d. \u201cThank you, James Franco.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jokes are often outrageous, with much talk of \u201ctitty-f***ing\u201d and \u201cexplosive ejaculate\u201d. That\u2019s par for the course these days \u2013 but they don\u2019t have the smugness that so often taints Hollywood comedy, if only because our heroes are doing drugs and discussing porno mags with the world ending around them. There are hidden tensions: Franco\u2019s hiding food from the others; Rogen and Baruchel have been growing apart; everybody hates Danny McBride (or \u2018Danny McBride\u2019). Above all, the film works a constant undertow of fantasy (specifically films) vs. reality, incidentally making a comment on immature men who can\u2019t tell one from the other.<\/p>\n
At some point Hill becomes possessed (don\u2019t ask) and Baruchel performs an exorcism by quoting from The Exorcist (\u201cThe power of Christ compels you\u2026\u201d). \u201cIt\u2019s a movie!\u201d protests someone; \u201cIt\u2019s a manual!\u201d counters Jay \u2013 and that\u2019s the point, movie reality trumping actual reality (as it did e.g. in Inglourious Basterds) just as \u2018Seth Rogen\u2019 ultimately trumps Seth Rogen. This Is the End is a film made by actors about actors, the strange halfway-house of being an actor, the selfishness and stunted emotional development of being an actor \u2013 but also a kind of validation, the actors initially daunted by the thought of being heroes (\u201cWe\u2019re actors! We\u2019re soft as baby shit!\u201d) only to discover that the End of the World is really just a glorified B-movie. I never thought I\u2019d give four stars to a film that begins with Seth Rogen scoffing burgers and ends with a performance by the Backstreet Boys, but there it is. This whole summer\u2019s been bizarre, in my opinion.