Short Round: This is the End (2013) ****/*****

The advertisements for This is the End made it look like a lazy project that wouldn’t be worth anyone’s attention. That’s because co-writers and co-directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg pretty much just got all of their friends together, put them in a room, and had them riff on various apocalypse scenarios while taking the occasional time out to mention consumer products like Milky Way candy bars. Rogen and Goldberg didn’t even seem to bother to write anyone characters, as everyone is just playing themselves in a Meta sort of deconstruction of what it would be like if six of the funniest actors in Hollywood actually were faced with dealing with the end of the world. This is the End looked like the sort of paid-vacation-by-way-of-film-shoot that Adam Sandler gets routinely drug over the coals for making.

Unlike an Adam Sandler movie though, it turns out This is the End isn’t lazy at all, and it does have a script that its writers/directors clearly worked hard on, as well as some surprisingly effective action scenarios that they clearly stretched their meager budget pretty far in order to achieve. The basic premise here is that James Franco is throwing a party when the rapture occurs, and things immediately start going crazy all over the world. Most everyone is either taken to heaven or killed instantly, but Franco, Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson all find themselves left behind to barricade themselves in the house and deal with calamities like earthquakes, sink holes, demon possessions, monster attacks, and roving bands of cannibals.

While everyone is playing themselves to some degree, they’re also playing crafted characters who have a story arc to experience, so what the real name/real location conceit of the film ends up being used for is an excuse to feature a ton of celebrity cameos as well as a giving of carte blanche to our players for them to pack as many pop culture references into 107 minutes as they can without their ever feeling forced. The results are generally hilarious. Filthy, but hilarious. It’s true that the film plays more like a series of amusing vignettes than it does a meaty story that needed to be told, and things do meander a bit in a second act that seemed to be stretching for time, but minor quibbles like that can generally be forgiven because so much of what Rogen, Goldberg, and their cast have created is laugh out loud funny, and their third act is actually able to build to satisfying climactic moments that aren’t just action-packed and hilarious in their ridiculousness, but also find a little bit of heart and humanity in all of the sarcastic quips and raunchy sex jokes. All in all, This is the End is the best comedy we’ve gotten so far in 2013.