The boys are back in this comedy pub-crawl to the apocalypse. Co-stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and co-writer / director Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) rework the ballsy bromance theme that has stood them in good stead thus far. Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike join the fun when they discover that the town of their childhood has been taken over by blue-blooded robots, a Czech word, meaning slave, except they're not slaves they're – but I'm getting ahead of myself.

As a boy, Gary King (Pegg) was the man of Newton Haven, a nondescript English town where five lads once attempted to complete the Golden Mile, an infamous pub-crawl that forged unshakeable bonds and set their course in life. Naturally, they soon forgot about each other until twenty odd years later, Gary decides to get the band back together. Between his Peter-Pan enthusiasm for the old days, an unnatural need to complete the mile and the car-crash value of nostalgia, they join him and return to Newton Haven.

The World's End is largely a one note comedy, albeit a rather funny one that embraces the idea of stalled lives and clips it to sci-fi body-snatchers. Pegg and Wright have given the cast plenty to work with and they're mostly up to the task. Frost and Freeman are typically bright, Marsan and Pike show good comic timing, only Considine looks like he's walked on to the wrong set. They're well served by a frisky one liners and rejoinders that grow increasingly chaotic when it becomes clear that Newton Haven more closely resembles the Village of the Damned. People have been supplanted by robots and The Network that runs them (voiced by Bill Nighy) is not about to let our heroes escape with their secret.

The unlikely mix of beer and aliens certainly gives The World's End a unique spin; where things become unglued is in the film's pacing. With too much time given to set up and too much to the pay off, the story soon begins to feel like an over-extended segment from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Wright papers over the cracks with snappy edits and hyper production that ramps up an already frenetic pace well beyond eleven. It's distracting certainly, particularly when The Network pulls the pin on Earth and ushers in the apocalypse on the back of a digi-tech meltdown, yet like visual candy-floss, it's not particularly filling.

While big themes are given short shrift, there is still much to like about The World's End. For over-45's, nostalgia never sounded so good with a cracking Britpop soundtrack bookended by Primal Scream's Loaded, and kicked into goal by The Housemartin's Happy Hour. There are nods to Fawlty Towers, Casablanca and even Cloud Atlas, as well as their own 'Cornetto' trilogy, much of which is laugh out loud funny. Although it falls well short of the director's claims that this is “social science fiction” in the tradition of John Wyndham, it remains good fun with Pegg great value as an alcoholic kidult unwilling and unable to grow up.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Events Cinemas, George St Sydney, on 29 July 2013