A melancholy night at the cinema (with The World's End and Pacific Rim)

Often, going to the cinema is a laugh, and for the most part The World's End, the last instalment of Edgar Wright's ice cream trilogy, was fun. It's just that the mid-life crisis angst and oversold comic hooks were a bit worn out and desperate. If the first instalment, Shaun of the Dead, managed to strike a perfect balance between the genre homages, drama and comedy, The World's End was too sledgehammer in execution, like it was overcompensating as it staggered over the finish line.

Throw in a disjointed final act that is unsatisfying precisely because it is so perverse, and the film ends on a sombre note that's a bit too jarring. It does of course pick up all of a sudden in the last scene, but there's something disturbing about the odd belief in sci fi that you have to sweep away the world to save it.

Then there was Pacific Rim. Jesus Christ, what a load of shit. The absurd characters were cut out of cardboard (seriously, there's more life in a Toho sound stage full of scale model buildings), and were, without exception, utterly vile and unsympathetic. After nigh-on two hours, I even wanted the fucking dog to die. The dialogue was beyond parody.

The stars of the show - the big monsters and the big robots - were, meanwhile, obscured by darkness and water for the most part. It makes you wonder quite what it is you're meant to be seeing, as the murk gets in the way of multimillion dollar SFX to the point that it might as well not be there. As a final insult, the film ends with yet another Raid-on-the-Deathstar via Independence Day reset button. I say final, because the entire film spends its duration insulting your intelligence

Throw in a nasty pro-militarism and authoritarian subtext, and a heartless, banal core to the movie, and you have a veritable mountain of kaiju shit falling out of the screen in glorious 3D.

As the credits finally - mercifully - roll, you just have to wonder if directors of any renown should be put out to pasture after a few years, before they start making inadvertent comedies like Prometheus, The Dark Knight Rises and this bulbous turkey. Did the maker of Pan's Labyrinth really crap this one out?

And then there is the soundtrack - DERDERDER-DER-DER! DERDERDER-DER-DER! DERDERDER-DER-DER! It's like a really annoying ringtone, a lot like the rest of the film as it happens.

Having fucked this up, will Legendary do a better job with Godzilla? It's not looking good.

Want to hear the punchline? After watching this cinematic gem, I missed the last bus home.