This Is The End

The term ‘self-indulgent’ often gets tossed around as a pejorative.  Self-indulgent people are to be avoided, self-indulgent books left unread, and self-indulgent movies skipped.  Why spend time with anything more pleased with how clever it is than with entertaining you?

This Is The End, a very, very high-concept comedy directed and written by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan, who also stars, is about as self-indulgent as it gets.  Rogan plays himself, Seth Rogan the actor, who lives in Los Angeles alongside his high-powered showbiz buddies.  When old friend Jay Baruchel visits, Rogan drags him to a lavish party at James Franco’s house where they run into a who’s who of famous comics, movie stars, and Rihanna, all of whom play exaggerated versions of the characters they've come to be identified with onscreen.  Seth Rogan- that’s the writer and director, not the character in the movie- has expended several million dollars to finance what is essentially an elaborate, special effects-filled parody of his life.  As far as self-indulgence goes, it’s pretty impressive.

And yet it’s hard to complain when the laughs come as reliably as they do here.  The party scene, in particular, is full of inspired comic grace notes, from digs at James Franco’s pretentious art collection to Michael Cera playing himself as a coke-hungry lecher.  For those in on the joke, it’s funny stuff.

Those not in on the joke will be entertained as well, especially after the earth around James Franco’s house opens up to swallow most of the guests whole and the land beyond his walls turns into a scorched Hellscape complete with winged demons and roving bands of cannibals.  That’s the movie’s high concept: how will a bunch of comedy actors- along with Rogan, Baruchel, and Franco, Jonah Hill and Craig Robinson also survive the initial catastrophe- deal with the coming of the Biblical apocalypse?

If you’ve seen many of the other comedies produced by Judd Apatow and his followers, you can probably guess.  They bicker, they have foul-mouthed, off the cuff conversations, and they get high while making cheap sequels to their previous hits using the camera from 127 Hours (James Franco keeps his props).  The apocalyptic material also allows for a lot of physical gags and parody- Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist each get a good workout- and the jokes come at a very fast clip.  It’s cozy, goofy, and easy to watch, and the best moments come when the actors are allowed to riff on each other for effortless comic payoffs.  The cast displays the kind of boyish, cheerfully vulgar camaraderie we’re used to from Apatow and his ilk- he’s always made movies about endearing man-children- but setting those antics against the end of the world sheds some light on how immature these characters really are.

The movie takes this idea and almost runs with it, but eventually gets back to looking like an excuse for Rogan and pals to goof off on movie screens across the country and to charge you for it.  I should be mad at them for this.  If self-indulgence means wallowing in what interests you to the exclusion of what might interest others, than This Is The End might be the most self-indulgent movie ever shot.  There are certainly moments that go too far- the ending, for example, seems too much like a reference in search of a joke.  But I can’t be mad.  The movie is made with too much good cheer, too much loopy enthusiasm.  Perhaps Rogan and company really aren’t interested in writing about anything beyond who they are and what they like, but by this point they’ve learned to do it in a way that’s infectiously entertaining enough to get past my barriers.  This Is The End is too insular to set the world on fire, but will appeal to those who can take a good inside joke.