This Is the End

God, I hated this movie. And I was stunned to see how many critics thought it was great. The premise is that James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogan, and a couple people I don’t know, playing themselves, hole up in Franco’s ugly, pretentious hillside home after Los Angeles is hit by some Biblical Armageddon. And act like total assholes. You can almost feel them nudging you in the ribs: “Get it? We’re pretending we’re witless, shallow, egotistical Hollywood assholes, but we really aren’t, or else how could we be so cool as to make this cool movie?” An utter disaster, worse than what was fictionally happening up there on the screen. Personally, I would much sooner confront a fiery Satan—or whatever that was that erupted from the ground near the end—than have to watch another self-referential horror like this. The only one who came out of it with my respect for her more or less intact was Emily Watson, and she vanished near the beginning and didn’t show up again until near the end. What utter garbage this movie was.