10 Reasons Why The World's End Is Secretly The Best Of The Cornetto Trilogy

10. Directorial Flair

Edgar Wright is a filmmaker who was born masterful and whose confidence behind the camera has only snowballed since. Just take a look at his very early short film Dead Right, included on the Hot Fuzz DVD extras, to see how early on his unrivalled eye for visual, kinetic ingenuity strove to leap above and beyond the call of duty. It almost goes without saying that some of the most frequently lauded aspects of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead are the ingenious, fluid elements of Wright's direction, but The World's End sees the comedy maestro at the peak of his abilities, easing off on the recognisable 'woosh' cuts that gave accent to Shaun and Fuzz. This is post-Hollywood, Scott Pilgrim Wright. This is Marvel Studios Wright. The first real master-stroke comes during the film's celebrated men's room showdown €“ the first encounter our inebriated heroes have with the robotic forces of the invading network. Without a slither of strain, Wright deftly realises an inventive, five-way fight scene wherein his travelling camera breezes in and out of the separate one-on-ones in a rolling, edge-of-your seat set-piece to rival the likes of Avengers Assemble's explosive denouement. Many a Brit director would be content with such a sequence, but Wright insists on outdoing himself with a later punch-up in one of Gary King's beloved pubs, during which the anti-hero strives to keep his pint glass filled to the brim with beer in an ambitious balancing act that Buster Keaton would be proud of. The World's End is a British comedy wrapped in Hollywood flair (which, given its genre cinema leanings, is wholly appropriate). What it retains in themic and comedic kinship with its Cornetto predecessors, it gloriously dusts off in terms of slick, unfaltering visual style.