This Is the End turns a disaster movie into a comedy about being famous. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg made a film about the end of the world, and they chose to fill it with jokes about Hollywood instead of panic. That choice defines everything that works and everything that falls flat.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The Setup
Six friends — Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson and Emma Watson — hide in a mansion during the apocalypse. The film treats the end of the world as a backdrop for panic, betrayal and small-minded cruelty, not the zombies or the demons.
What Works
The film commits fully to its tone. When it leans into satire, it lands. Jay Baruchel plays himself as the only sane man among the group, and the contrast between his panic and the others’ casual self-interest drives most of the humor. The film also gets genuine mileage out of watching famous actors play versions of themselves.
What Falls Flat
The film loses focus when it stops being funny and starts being loud. The middle stretch drags, and the special effects — demons, fire, destruction — feel like a chore to look at rather than a reason to watch. Some scenes run too long, and the pacing suffers for it.
Comparing the Satire
The film’s strength comes from specific character work. When it names exactly who these people are — the panicked friend, the selfish one, the quiet observer — the satire lands. When it falls back on spectacle for spectacle’s sake, the jokes lose their edge.
| Type of Scene | Effect |
|---|---|
| Specific character humor | Sharp, clever |
| Spectacle-driven action | Dull, loud |
The Verdict
This Is the End is a film about fame that never quite escapes its own irony. It wants to say something about celebrity and privilege, but it keeps getting sidetracked by gross-out jokes and physical comedy. The result is uneven: sharp, clever, and then dull, all within the same scene.
Baruchel carries the film with a performance that reads as honest panic next to everyone else’s self-absorption. He is the reason the satire works. Without him, the movie would lose a lot of its weight.
The film is at its best when it is specific about who these people are, and at its worst when it relies on spectacle for spectacle’s sake. The ending tries to tie everything together with a moral about humility, but the joke is so obvious it feels like a shrug.
This Is the End is not a great film, but it is a confident one. It knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be, even if it cannot sustain that confidence for the full runtime. The jokes land more often than they miss, and the cast sells the chaos with genuine energy.
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