“The World’s End” starts with a montage set to some brilliant old skool dance music as Gary King (Simon Pegg) tells his AA group about the best night of his life. On their last day of school, he and his four best mates attempted The Golden Mile, an epic pub crawl around their hometown Newton Haven. They only managed a pint in nine of the 12 establishments along the route before bailing out. Now, over 20 years later, Gary wants to make amends.
The trouble is, all his old pals have grown up, moved away, and got on with their adult lives. Andy (Nick Frost), Gary’s old best friend, is now a teetotal lawyer; Steven (Paddy Considine) an architect displaying symptoms of a midlife crisis; Oliver (Martin Freeman) a yuppy-ish estate agent; and Peter (Eddie Marsan) a car salesman. None of them are particularly thrilled with the prospect of going back to another stab at the Golden Mile, but Gary’s irritating insistence pushes them into it.
Grudgingly arriving in Newton Haven, they find that Gary hasn’t moved on at all since the ’90s, driving the same old banger and listening to the same mixtape. Once they start drinking, he is in his element, but there is something strange about the town. The locals all seem strangely emotionless and every pub now looks the same. A few pints in, it becomes clear that the townsfolk have been replaced by sinister blue-blooded “blanks.” To avoid suspicion, Gary argues that the best course of action is to keep drinking and complete the Golden Mile…
