The World’s End sees the dream team of British geekiness Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost return to complete their “Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” that’s hitherto been incomplete with their smash hit romantic comedy… with zombies (or rom-com-zom) Shaun of the Dead and buddy cop action movie pastiche Hot Fuzz.

The 2nd of this summer’s apocalyptic comedies (the other being the far funnier This is the End), the plot centres on a group of friends who 20 years after they failed to complete an epic pub crawl in their home town are reluctantly brought back together by the enthusiastic leader of the pack Gary King (Pegg) to finish what they never did decades prior. While awkwardly trying to rekindle their old friendships and make there journey along “The Golden Mile” to reach the eponymous pub, they find that the town they once knew has changed and that something very strange is going on with the residents.

Anyone who is a fan of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz will find things to enjoy in The World’s End, not least of which is Wright’s inimitable visual style and his talent for focused, quick-witted comedy infused with pop culture references and nostalgia. The script, once again co-written by Wright and Pegg, is snappy and concise though much less of an homage to a specific genre than the previous Cornetto instalments.

While that allows the film to stand on its own more than the other two in some ways, it also makes it less iconic as it function more like an amalgamation nostalgia-fest, both in its central plot of friends trying to recapture their glory days and the gags it punctuates it with. To its credit it’s ambitious in trying to be a lot of different things at once – a buddy comedy, an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like mystery, a knockabout sci-fi action film and so on but it’s far more successful in some places than others.

It’s hard to put your finger on why this isn’t as good as the other two but it’s perhaps largely down to the central character. He’s a perpetual man-child (or rather man-teen) throughout, his cockiness and arrogance with many a “did he just say that?” lines sometimes being funny but often just coming off as dickish. We’re pegged, no pun intended, to that character as the film tries to take us on a journey of his personal redemption and trying to grow up in a way that his friends managed to long ago but by the time it gets to any emotional scenes with him and his former best friend Andrew (Nick Frost) it’s a case of too little too late.

The team has assembled a brilliant and likeable cast for the trilogy’s final outing. Out with the usual Pegg and Frost, who have long since proved their natural comedic abilities together and apart, we have Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan making up “The Five Musketeers” (as Pegg’s character refers to them) who all have great sense comedic chemistry with one another. It’s just fun watching them interact and throw Wright and Pegg’s witty lines of dialogue at one another even if the central friendship shared between them feels rather forced down our throats at every turn. There’s also a host of faces who pop up here and there who will be familiar to fans of British comedy, part of the clever in-joke nature of the whole thing.

It takes a while to get going as Gary drags his old pals out of their comfortable daily lives and back to the town they grew up in but once mayhem ensues (I won’t say how for fear of spoiling it for anyone who wants to go in cold) there’s a sense of energy and visual wow factor that only Wright can really achieve; his experience on the stylized Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (only the 2nd film he’s made without Pegg and Frost so far) shines through here. It provides some unique and interesting imagery not really seen before, or at least not in such an everyday British context.

Consistently chucklesome, almost always clever but never quite the hilarious movie promised by the trio’s previous team-ups, The World’s End is certainly the most ambitious of the trilogy but also the weakest. It’s somewhat of a disappointment in that way but never anywhere close to bad. It’s well directed and acted by an accomplished team of talented people and there’s generally much to enjoy as the Wright/Pegg/Frost singularly British brand of comedy continues. And long may it continue beyond this entertaining trilogy.

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