Simon Pegg's Gary King is a maniac - an alcoholic man-child, his only goal in life is to be as cool as he was when he was a teenager attempting a famous pub-crawl. As far as lifetime goals, that falls toward the "pathetic" end of the spectrum. But in his manic, jubilant bliss, Gary King is a character to remember. There is a lot to be said for how Simon Pegg throws aside his normal type to play this skinny retro-hipster. Gary King is the first character in Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy that has a pace equal to that of the movie he's in. He is practically bouncing off the walls in nearly every scene. What makes him a great character, however, is the way in which his manic behavior is grounded in a real sense of sadness and wasted potential. There are moments of real poignancy between scenes of hilarity that lend him dimension and honesty. There is a lot to be said for characters this hilarious that also have a genuine message behind their inherent mania. The World's End, channelled through the character of Gary King, is unafraid to point out that the flaws that make him so funny are rooted in real problems, and aren't just an amusing grab bag of quirky details.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
