The apocalypse doesn’t seem like much of a laughing matter, but in “This Is The End,” Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg enlist all of their movie-star pals for a look at the last days of Earth that’s as hilarious as it is harrowing. The co-writers and directors take a long and semi-serious look at Hollywood friendships while documenting what might happen if you put Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride in one location and then unleashed hell — literally — outside the front door.
But with a who’s who of Hollywood’s hottest comedians burning up the same silver screen, are critics on board with the actors satirizing the end of days? MTV News assembled a roundup of reviews from across the Internet to see if the movie is a comedic masterpiece or Hell on earth.
First Of All, Is It Funny?
“From the clockwork comic timing to the movie’s salty mix of the ridiculous and the reflective, “This Is the End” is stupidly hysterical and smartly heretical. Cross my heart and hope to die, it’s funny as hell.” — Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times
How Are The Actors At Playing Themselves?
“The actors are all pretty great sports, making fun of themselves without giving off an air of how pleased they are with satirizing their image. They’re not playing themselves so much as they are playing their personas, but their personas are funny, particularly when they’re trapped inside Franco’s house and all hell is breaking loose outside.” — Tim Grierson, Deadspin
How’s The Group’s Historically Great Improv?
“It’s a hit-and-mostly-miss affair: For every gut-buster like McBride and Franco’s lengthy exchange about drenching each other in seminal fluid, there’s a fall-flat gag, such as an improvised-into-oblivion riff on raping special guest star Emma Watson, that quickly stifles the giggles.” — Keith Uhlich, Time Out
What Does It Have To Say About Hollywood?
“The film, at its phoned-in worst and also at its riotous best, has a terminal feeling. It suggests that a comic subgenre based on the immaturity, sexual panic and self-mocking tendencies of men who should be old enough to know better has reached its expiration date.” — AO Scott, The New York Times
Does It Work?
“Great as it often is, the movie falls short of being a classic. Rogen and Goldberg’s problems, also evident in their script for “Pineapple Express,” are pacing, plotting, pruning: That movie, while funny, went on way too long and confused itself with an action flick.” — Kyle Smith, New York Post
Check out everything we’ve got on “This Is The End.”
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