The World’s End (2013)

Planet Earth had it rough in 2013. Along with numerous sci-fi flicks, our home got smashed about in “This is the End” and “The World’s End,” widely different (despite titles) comedies that satirize cinematic apocalypse larks with onscreen man-bonding and plenty of drink and drugs. “World’s End” is the last in a comedy trilogy from director/writer Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, following “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.” Here, we take a smart stab at alien-attack flicks and the goofy nostalgia films of old high school chums getting back together to party like the good ol’ days. Wright, Pegg, and Frost call bullshit. Not on aliens. Reunions. When you go back, you fail. Your town has changed, you have changed, and everyone else has, too. Pegg’s boozer doesn’t realize that, though, and watching the guy fret over beer more than humanity is riotous, and a smash at every other boozer film. As they have before, our trio up-end the genre they mock with laser sharp wit. Mainly: Whoever you be, never argue with a drunk Brit. Bonus points: An ex-Bond in a end-game cameo. Love the beard. A-

This is the End (2013)

“This is the End” is a Hollywood-insider joke from the stoner club of Seth Rogen and pals, lathered in endless jokes about pot, jerking off, L.A. life, and bromances, with two running gags that make it worth at least one watch. First: James Franco stars as himself, playing up his apparent homosexuality by obsessing over Rogen (as himself) with scary devotion. The second: Emma Watson plays an ax-wielding bad-ass Emma Watson. “Hermione stole all our shit,” said by Danny McBride, has to be the funniest line of the year. The plot: Rogen and pot pal -– if you don’t like drug jokes, just stay away -– Jay Baruchel join a party thrown by Franco at the latter’s phallic-heavy home with booze and drugs free-flowing until the shit hits the world fan: Earthquakes, fires, monsters, and angry Watson. Typical Hollywood, every disaster here is from some other movie, borrowed and cleaned-up new, with the best riffs from “Ghostbusters” and “Rosemary's Baby.” Why not, eh? The end of “The End” may play a bit sacrilegious for some, but my worst beef came from the too self-satisfied smirk on everyone’s face. That said, I laughed my ass off. B+

Dredd (2012) and Mad Max (1979)

It’s the future, so bring on the apocalypse. I downed cheapo, gonzo 1979 Australian classic (and Mel Gibson debut) “Mad Max” as a fast antidote to “Dredd,” the second cinematic coming of comic book anti-hero killer cop Judge Dredd after the God-awful, terrible 1995 Sylvester Stallone film of the same name that put freakin’ Rob Schneider in the sidekick role. 

(The less said about that debacle, the better. It took me months to recover from just one viewing.)

Is “Dredd” better? By far. Miles. It’s still crap. For myriad reasons. The plot: It’s post-nuclear war U.S. of A., and the whole East Coast is a godless concrete jungle of high rises and crime. The police and courts have been merged into the Judges: Leather-clad, masked cops with guns and a glint to kill. Basically, it’s like present day America except everybody is an unarmed young black man. You can get “judged” and end up in a body bag just for walking. Sorry, I digress. Still on a “FrutivaleStation” kick. Can’t help it.

Anyway, Dredd (Karl Urban) is the best (read: most ruthless) cop in Mega-City (because Metropolis was taken) and we follow him here as he takes on a high-rise apartment tower that reaches for the heavens, but might as well plunge low to the pits of hell. As in 1995, Dredd has a sidekick. And it’s a she, and not Schneider in drag, thank the gods. Helmetless because why stump the fan boy’s eye candy factor, Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) also is a mutant who can read the thoughts of others. Why are there mutants popping around? No idea. 

Dredd and Anderson enter the complex to investigate a grisly drug-related triple murder and within minutes find themselves at the mercy of the building’s ruthless drug lord (Lena Headey). Mama she is called, and she places the building on lockdown and tells every thug ruthless, shitty, one-eyed, tenant over an intercom that she wants Dredd’s head now. From there it’s war, the tenants attack our hero (and the girl rookie) and he shoots, bombs, kicks, scowls, and grimaces his way through the lot to the top.

If One Man Against an War Zone Apartment Complex and the intercom bit sounds familiar it’s because the plot and details were done exactly point-for-point in “The Raid,” an kick-ass Indonesian action/blood fest also from 2012. Literally, this is a replica. Down to camera angles. Everything says director Pete Travis is innocent, it’s a mere coincidence. If it is, “Raid” is still the better film. And Travis has the luck of a rat. “Raid” has a hero that means something and is one hell of a sight to behold, has a human trait, and a reason not to fail. It’s also a spectacular feast of stunts. Seriously, see it.

This has CGI glut, a zero hero with Urban (good actor, no slam, I like him) doing Eastwood as an unkillable tank, and it all means nothing. Absolutely nothing. I get it. Dredd is supposed to be the darker Dark Knight. Great read for a book, I’m sure, bur a lousy watch and with so many wasted opportunities. Dig it: Mama has created a nasty drug that slows the brain to a crawl so every movement feels wicked trippy, lights pop, and rushing water stands still, and the effect is crazy wicked on screen. So let’s see Dredd on that shit, right? No. Dude just kills and scowls. I won’t watch a third film. C 

“Mad Max” I can watch endlessly. You know the plot: It’s the near-future, meaningful authority is dust-bin history, and the highways are open roads of lawlessness akin to old Australia or the American West than anything we’d call the future. Zero horses, all cars. Gibson is Max, a highway cop trying to maintain some order against roaming bikers who steal, rape, and kill for the pure glee. The bikers make the error to wrong Max’s friends and family, and Gibson as Max explodes like a fuel-air bomb in a film that feels not scripted or planned, but captured out of a complete drug-fueled nightmare. Not slow like in “Dredd,” but warp-speed head-rush fast.

Whole sections of “Max” are incomprehensible and wreck loud, but few films -– especially chase ones -– have ever felt more in the moment. It vibes like a tale that had to be made or writer/director George Miller and his star would just die. And for all the story’s debauchery, Miller shows little blood or gore. It’s just over the camera frame’s edge, way deep in our skull, and that is scarier than anything anyone can put before our eyes. Gibson is young and scary fanatical, is that acting? A-

World War Z (2013)

Against all odds -– based on an episodic novel seemingly impossible to adapt straightforward, and a production history rife with massive re-shoots and enough upheaval to make James Cameron wince -– actor/producer/Robert Redford-blessed Brad Pitt has performed a miracle. He’s made a fun, smart, summer popcorn thriller with “World War Z.” (Max Brooks -- son of Mel -- wrote the cult novel, for which TV sensation “The Walking Dead” likely owes its existence.) 

Pitts plays Gerry Lane, a former United Nations special investigator of human rights abuses now a stay-at-home dad. Quickly in the film, Gerry and his doting wife (Mireille Enos) are driving their daughters in Center City Philadelphia when radio news pops of a rabies outbreak among humans, and then traffic around the family pops and booms as the city falls into mysterious chaos. (The editing in these scenes is jittery with fear and gripping as hell.) Gerry catches a glance: Deranged people attacking each other, biting arms and faces and legs, and spreading the inhuman malady, with eyes bulging and bones cracking with sick unnatural movement. 

Of course Gerry is needed for his wonder-boy skills, and the U.N. calls and saves him and family, before tasking our hero with the impossible: Find the origin of the outbreak and any possible cure before the humanity flat lines. With that, Gerry globetrots to South Korea, then Israel, then onward and outward, all the time thinking of his family. He’s a good dad first. (Debate the moral choices made here later, on your own time.)

Pitt and director Marc Forster, and a long gang of writers, including several “Lost” alumni, and some replacement director unknown, have nailed not just an undeniably cool version of the Brooks’ book, they also have cleared one other hurdle: Breaking from “Walking Dead” and other zombie horror classics, “Shaun of the Dead” among them. How so? They drop the “every man” angle and make this a mystery film from the top down, the world’s “police” attempting to beat a clock to save all of humanity. You can practically hear the “Law & Order” ka-klum! noise. And it works. 

Yes, the lack of any gore and guts for the PG-13 rating and the preordained knowledge that no one we care for, or Gerry cares for, will be chomped liver, breaks the dramatic weight, but the finale with Pitt staring down a zombie with an overbite is marvelous, chilling fun. Also kick-ass: A scene set inside a jumbo jet with a female Israeli soldier (Daniella Kertesz) saving our hero’s ass, plus the fall of Jerusalem is beautifully-played, large-scale CGI work seen from the eye of God. (Speaking of, the politics pitched here seem like a dare to the real world, and may be worth a second watch on their own.) 

If you need a hint of the behind-the-scenes “Z” chaos, look quick for actor Matthew Fox (also from “Lost”) as a helicopter pilot. He appears for only a few frames. In an original cut, he was a major character. But that I did not fully pick up on that in the theater? That’s as cool as taking out a zombie with a kro-bar and drinking a Pepsi to celebrate. And, yes, that happens. B+