That wasn't the end of 'This Is the End'

From Steven Rea's "On Movies Online"

www.inquirer.com/onmovies

Spurred by big ratings numbers for Comedy Central's Roast of James Franco show - and perhaps by an obsession with nice round 9-digit numbers - Sony Pictures is putting This Is the End back into theaters Friday, reopening the June 12 release on more than 2,000 screens. With a box office gross of $96.9 million, the apocalyptic comedy is this close to hitting the magic $100 million mark.

Written and directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen and set on a nice balmy night in the Hollywood Hills, the movie finds a whole bunch of actors, comedians, singers, and showbiz entities behaving like their real-life (well, kind of) selves, heading over to James Franco's fancy new digs for a housewarming party. Once everybody gets there, and starts getting stoned, something like the Rapture kicks in - the heavens unleash fury, the ground opens up, and Michael Cera is caught in the bathroom having a three-way.

The movie skewers the impossibly multitasking Franco in much smarter, cooler ways than that retro Comedy Central roast did, and the cast and cameos are great, including an ax-wielding Emma Watson, a shamelessly narcissistic Jonah Hill, a super-bad Rihanna, and some surprise appearances that are too good to spoil. End of Days? Well, not yet, anyway. And if they can figure out how to do a sequel, Franco, Rogen, and company will probably do it. Sony won't mind.