Grunberg & Grayston do a Pegg & Frost
Owen Stokes (Greg Grunberg - Bond of Silence) owns a movie collectables store and spends most of his time thinking about and discussing movies with Steve (Neil Grayston), his loyal worker, who is just as much of a movie fanatic as he is. What it means is that Owen is not the best of boyfriends when it comes to his girlfriend, Selena (Caroline Cave - The Horses of McBride), who often ends up feeling ignored. But when electric pulses start shooting out of the sky it is Owen and Steve who call on their extensive knowledge of disaster & sci-fi movies to not only survive the chaos and destruction but find a way of saving the planet with a little help from author Doc Brown (Brad Dourif - Miami Magma).
You know the Cornetto Trilogy; the three movies which Simon Pegg and Nick Frost made with Edgar Wright, well "End of the World" would have fitted them perfectly. I say that because "End of the World" very much pokes fun at the whole sci-fi/ disaster genre with Greg Grunberg and Neil Grayston in the Pegg & Frost style roles where they are movie geeks using their movie knowledge to stop the End of the World. That is it and as this is a TV movie we have the weaker special effects you tend to find in this sort of movie but which tend to fit due to the movies intentionally jokey nature.
The trouble with "End of the World" is not so much you can tell that it has been made on a TV movie budget but in that it tries too hard when it comes to not just being funny but fitting in to the Pegg & Frost genre mocking style. Take for example that are likeable duo go on a rescue mission to save Steve's sweet silver haired mother Betty, it feels a little too much like it has been included because of the Barbara rescue mission in "Shaun of the Dead". It is the same with other jokes as whilst it clearly is poking fun at a genre sometimes it is just too obvious as to what the pay off will be.
Despite this Greg Grunberg, Neil Grayston and Caroline Cave all play their parts well, bringing the comedy to their characters. But in a strange way it is Merrilyn Gann who steals the movie as Betty, Steve's sweet, white haired mother.
What this all boils down to is that "End of the World" actually does quite a decent job of semi spoofing the sci-fi/disaster movie genre whilst trying to also feel like it would have worked as a Pegg & Frost movie. But it isn't without its issues with a little too much unsubtlety working against it.