Have I seen The World’s End yet? No. No I haven’t. I will rectify that shortly. But not having seen it kind of makes me the perfect person to make this brief and wildly premature argument, because what I lack in actual viewing of the movie I make up for in faith in the team behind it to put out a product that I will immensely enjoy. It also doesn’t hurt that Dan calls it “easily one of the best science fiction movies of the year” and it’s trending 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
That’s all enough for me to prematurely claim that “The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” is the best trilogy. Or at least my favorite. Here’s why…
Genre Jumping
OK, so it really helps that The Cornetto Trilogy isn’t really a trilogy from a narrative sense. Each film starts fresh and gets to explore a whole new genre and make it its own. The films are not dragged down by tired characters or plotlines and they each just get to be really good and funny while tackling zombie, cop, and sci-fi films. What they do do however is make superior genre movies to the ones they are semi-parodying.
Individual Quality
This leads to no weak links. Based on the rave reviews for The World’s End thus far I think it’s safe to conclude that Edgar Wright & Co. have successfully avoided their Jedi, Godfather III, or even Temple of Doom. This is key to being the best trilogy.
Symmetry
There’s still plenty of symmetry though. From the actors to the locations to the man-boy themes to — of course — the fence jump gag…
The Visuals
I’m no film student but Edgar Wright is good at visuals. Hot Fuzz in particular is a visual masterpiece. This shot is the most referenced example of how to take ordinary and make it awesome.
The Comedy
Comedies are simply more re-watchable, so when a comedy parodies a popular genre and in doing so is better than most everything in that genre, well…
The Name
“The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy” comes from the usage of Cornetto ice cream cones in each film, with the flavor used in each film matching the theme. The idea sounds elaborately thought out but as Simon Pegg has explained the only reason they kept doing it is because they really liked getting free ice cream from Cornetto. Perfect.
Edgar Wright Is Awesome
For all of the above and he’s more than happy to talk to FilmDrunk about fanboy critiques and reviews of his own films.
And Finally, Beers
Because any trilogy that uses drinking pints as a thematic cornerstone is the trilogy for me.
Consider yourself persuaded.
Banner image via AMC’s Cornetto Trilogy Marathon