It's time for a comedic apocalypse with the release of THIS IS THE END on U.S blu-ray, Shawn Francis takes us deep into the minds of Seth Rogan and co with his lowdown on the Stoner-pocalypse flick, Check out Shawn's trademark words after the jump....
Written By Shawn Francis
This
is the comedic and apocalyptic exploits of six well known actors
(James Franco, Danny McBride,
As
Hell surfaces amidst fiery sinkholes and wanton destruction to
property as far as the eye can see, Franco’s party guests get
whittled down to the aforementioned six. But before that happens we
get to see a coked up Michael Cera hit on Rihanna and get serviced by
a couple of chicks in a bathroom; idle conversation with Emma Watson
about hipster hate; a declaration from Mindy Kaling that she’s
going to fuck Cera before the night is over and sundry other actors
and actresses mingling with one another.
Most
of the movie is confined to Franco’s house as he barricades it the
best he can from the outside Hell World while comedic survival
instincts of each broil up to either help the group or derail it. A
nice example of a major derailment is when Emma Watson shows up
looking for help. The guys take her in, but the abrupt subject comes
up of who might be the first to attempt a rape. Watson overhears this
and goes ballistic with the ax she came in with, demanding they give
her all their food and water or heads will roll. They do and she
leaves for greener pastures.
It’s not until the
1:18 mark when circumstances turn seriously dire. While
Robinson and Baruchel are seeking food and water at a neighbor’s
house and finally coming face-to-face with one of the demonic fauna
now skulking the earth, Jonah Hill is Rosemary’s Baby homage raped
by a demon with a horse-sized tallywhacker. This raping leads to full
on possession that ends in the survivors suddenly finding themselves
homeless and having to brave the Devil and his minions in this
outside world.
Audio/Video/Subtitle
Specs: 1080p High Definition 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen—English
(audio) 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French, English (Descriptive Track)
5.1 Dolby Digital—Subtitles: English, English (SDH) and French.
When
it comes to extra features there are a whole bunch that are exclusive
to the blu-ray only and there are some that are shared with the DVD.
First up we’ll look at the extras both share:
A
very well done and funny commentary with actor, Seth Rogen and
director, Evan Goldburg
‘Directing
Your Friends’ (6:30) is your basic behind-the-scene featurette.
Not really anymore I can say about that, except that it’s funny due
to the presence of all the comedy actors.
‘This
Is The Marketing’ is a series of featuettes that consists of
Marketing Outtakes, Cast Featurette, Redband Sizzle Trailer, and
four Confessionals. The Marketing Outtakes are actually
funny; the Cast Featurette is basically another
behind-the-scenes and the four Confessionals are excepts of the
confessionals seen in the movie with scenes from the movie woven
in-between which make it look like four little commercials for the
flick.
Now
onto the extras you’ll only find on the blu-ray:
- ‘Deleted Scenes’ (15:08): 8 scenes can be played individually or all together. Some are funny, but I can see why they were cut. The movie would be too long.
- ‘This is the Gag Reel’ (6:15)—Hilarious! Period!
- ‘Line-O-Ramas Blooper Reel’ (12:34): Three scenes, (Sleepover, Cum Battle, We Don’t Know You Man!), play them all together or separately. Cum Battle outtakes is the funniest.
- ‘Meta-Apocalypse’ (7:43) interviews the cast on how much they play themselves as opposed to how much ‘fictional character’ they added.
- ‘Let's Get Technical’ (10:44) interviews the stunt coordinator and the director of photography about how they went about handling the stunts and the general look of the film. I have to admit this movie has got one of the best full body burns I’ve seen in a long, long time. The scene where possessed Jonah Hill is accidentally set on fire and runs around the house burning it down with his burning body. I liked this featurette a lot.
- ‘Party Time’ (12:54) covers the party scene in the beginning with all the actors and their eventual demises as Hell surfaces.
- ‘The Cannibal King’ (4:25) like the Cum Battle outtakes this is another hilarious set of outtakes and alternate takes of McBride introducing his sex gimp, Tatum.
- ‘The Making of 'The Making of Pineapple Express 2' (6:20) this is a behind-the-scenes look at how they made the DYI sequel.
- ‘Jay & Seth vs. The Apocalypse’ (9:58) this is a short film Rogen and Baruchel did that inspired them to make This Is The End.
- And finally there are trailers for White House Down, Elysium, The Kings Of Summer, Insidious: Chapter 2, In A World . . . and The To Do List.
For
horror lovers gore is quite minimal but pulled off practically—a
severed arm, an accidentally stomped on head that collapses like a
melon, a decapitation, and finally a cannibal scene where a face is
torn up, all done with comedic overtones.
It’s
not a bad movie and it actually reminded me of a comic version of The
Mist (2007), funny and downright hysterical at times, but I
personally didn’t really get interested in the actors’ plight
until they were forced from hiding late in the movie. The computer
generated effects for Godzilla-sized Satan, the two demons that are
encountered, the general destruction and Hell’s terrain is top
notch.
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