The World's End is a 2013 British science fiction comedy film directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan. It is the third in the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, following Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). The film follows a group of friends who discover an alien invasion during an epic pub crawl in their hometown. Wright has described the film as "social science fiction" in the tradition of John Wyndham and Samuel Youd.
The film is produced by Relativity Media, Big Talk Productions, and Working Title Films. Filming began in September 2012 at locations in Welwyn Garden City and Letchworth Garden City. Part of the film was also shot at High Wycombe railway station in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Filming ended on 22 December 2012.
The film premiered on 10 July 2013 at Leicester Square in London and was released in the United Kingdom on 19 July 2013. It was released in the United States on 23 August 2013.
Plot :
Gary King (Simon Pegg), a hedonistic alcoholic, resolves to track down his estranged friends and complete the Golden Mile, an infamous pub crawl encompassing 12 pubs in their hometown of Newton Haven. The group attempted the crawl as teenagers, but failed to reach the final pub, the World's End.
Gary convinces Peter (Eddie Marsan), Oliver "O-Man" (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine) and Andrew (Nick Frost) to join him in Newton Haven. While his friends have adult lives and responsibilities, Gary has changed little since 1990, remaining untrustworthy and impulsive. In the first pub, the First Post, the group and their mission is not met with the hero's welcome Gary expects. They are briefly joined at the Old Familiar by Oliver's sister Sam (Rosamund Pike), who rejects a sexual advance from Gary. Steven has always loved Sam, and has never forgiven Gary for sleeping with her many years ago.
In the Cross Hands, Gary gets into a fight with a local teenager. To Gary's surprise, the boy is inhumanly strong and agile. Gary accidentally knocks his head off, exposing him as a robot. Gary's friends join him for another fight with more robot youths. Unsure how many robots there may be, they decide to continue the pub crawl Gary had announced to the locals so as to avoid attracting suspicion.
At the Two Headed Dog, the group meets Sam and Gary warns her of the robot invasion. At the Mermaid, robots attempt to seduce the group and steal their DNA. When Sam's childhood crush, Adrian, appears, she panics and drags the others from the pub, explaining that Adrian had died in a motorcycle crash years previously. At the next pub, the Beehive, Guy Shepherd (Pierce Brosnan), a teacher at their school, encourages the group to accept their fate and become robots. The reappearance of a long-removed facial birthmark on Oliver makes the group realise he has been replaced with a robot based on his DNA, initiating a brawl. Despite the danger, Gary insists on drinking a pint during the fight. The group scatters, though Gary gets Sam to her car and tells her to leave Newton Haven.
Once reunited, the friends accuse each other of being replaced with robots like Oliver. Steven, Peter and Andrew prove themselves with scars from their childhood, but Gary refuses to roll his sleeves up to reveal his elbow scar. Instead, he repeatedly headbutts a pillar to prove that his skull is tougher than the robots'. The robots close in on the group, and Peter is captured, but Gary is determined to finish the pub crawl and runs towards the final pub. Abandoning Steven, Andrew chases Gary through the streets, fighting hordes of robots along the way.
At the World's End, Andrew confronts Gary. He has never forgiven Gary for abandoning him when he saved Gary's life after a drug overdose, leaving Andrew to be arrested. They begin to fight; Gary's arms are revealed to be bandaged after a recent suicide attempt. Gary tearfully tells Andrew that the Golden Mile is "all he has" and that Andrew "has everything he wants". Andrew reveals that his marriage has broken down.
Ignoring Andrew's pleas, Gary pulls himself a final pint at the bar. The lever instead lowers the bar into a hidden chamber, where Steven, having escaped the robots, finds them. An alien (voiced by Bill Nighy) explains that the robot invasion of the town is one of several on Earth, as part of a "civilising" process for humanity's own good, including the great advance in telecommunications in recent decades. The aliens offer eternal youth as robots, but the three friends decline, arguing that humans should be allowed to be imperfect. Seeing that humans are more trouble than they are worth, the aliens agree to leave the planet and abandon the invasion. Sam arrives to drive them to safety as the town begins to self-destruct.
Some time later, Andrew is recounting this story around a campfire in the ruins of London, explaining how the aliens' withdrawal from the planet was accompanied by a worldwide pulse that destroyed modern technology, setting humanity back to the Dark Ages. The abandoned robots have reactivated and are regarded with mistrust by surviving humans. Andrew's marriage has recovered, Steven is in a relationship with Sam, and Peter and Oliver, though now robots, have returned to a semblance of their old lives. In the ruins of Newton Haven, Gary reattempts the Golden Mile with the robot versions of his younger friends. They order five waters.