Gary King (Simon Pegg), a 40-year-old alcoholic, has not really matured since his teen years, but his four friends from that time—Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman), Peter Page (Eddie Marsan), Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), and Andrew Knightly (Nick Frost)—have all grown up. In an attempt to recapture his youth, Gary contacts them to join him in the Golden Mile pub-crawl, ending at The World’s End. Twenty-two years ago, they failed to finish. Andy is now a teetotaller but agrees to join them.
At The Old Familiar, they meet Oliver’s sister Sam (Rosamund Pike), whom Gary and Steven had been rivals for when they were teenagers. The town residents are strangely stoic about the irritating group. Then the barman of The Famous Cock tells them they are banned. At The Crossed Hands, they start to argue. Gary storms off to the toilet, where he knocks a teenager’s head off and discovers he is an android, whose android friends battle the pub-crawlers. Then they discover that the whole town has been replaced by androids. Gary says they should continue the crawl, not to draw undue attention. At the Trusty Servant, Oliver discovers that drug dealer Trevor (Michael Smiley) is in league with the androids. They run into Sam again at the Two-Headed Dog, where she joins them in fighting the androids. She goes with them to the Mermaid, where Steven discovers that the androids are trying to take over the world.
At the Beehive, the androids try to get the guys to join them, and another fight breaks out when it is discovered that Oliver has been replaced. Sam is the only one not too drunk to drive, and she escapes the town of Newton Haven. Peter gets captured and Gary ditches them at The King’s Head to finish the crawl on his own. They chase after Gary, and so does the entire town. Steven is captured at The Hole in The Wall. Andy catches up with Gary at The World’s End and tries to stop him from drawing his final pint. But Gary says it is the only thing he can achieve in life.
The floor lowers into a hidden chamber. A disembodied alien called The Network (Bill Nighy) tells them that the human race has already begun to join the Galactic Community through telecommunication. Gary is offered eternal life as an android, and he and Andy refuse on principle. The Network is disgusted and abandons the invasion, but the town is destroyed. Later, the pulse triggered has caused a worldwide blackout, destroying all electrical power on Earth and sending humanity back to the Dark Ages. The abandoned androids have found it difficult to join the human race but most of Gary’s childhood friends are now androids. In the ruins, Gary enters a pub with them and when the barman refuses to serve them, Gary starts a brawl.
The film was directed by Edgar Wright and written by him and Simon Pegg. It makes up the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy with Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007). It was produced by Relativity Media, Studiocanal, Big Talk, and Working Title. The pub names were designed to sound like Tarot Cards foreshadowing events. It was quite well received by critics and nominated by the Critics Choice Awards, the Saturn Awards, and the MTV Movie Awards. The bartenders of the first two pubs were cousins who had not seen each other for years until they were in the movie. The pub-crawler friends were named King, Page, Chamberlain, Prince, and Knightley. During the filming of the Apocalypse scene, residents of Dorking called the Fire Brigade. The sword in the final scene is a replica of Gandalf’s Glamdring.
The first pub is “The First Post”. The interior of “The Old Familiar” is exactly like the first pub. In “The Famous Cock”, Gary King is recognized. They work together in the fight at “The Cross Hands”. Everyone is happy except Gary in “The Good Companion”. The drug dealer is in “The Trusted Servant”. The bitchy twins are in “The Two-Headed Dog”. They are tempted by women at “The Mermaid”. They fight off swarms of enemies in “The Beehive”. Gary makes his last stand at “The King’s Head”. A car is driven through the wall at “The Hole in the Wall”. The world ends at “The World’s End”, and then they go to “The Rising Sun.” The energy is manic and the plot insane, and I found the Pythonesque dialogue hilarious.