This film paid more homage to Spaced than anything else. I mean, frick me, I absolutely loved Spaced. But I don't really recall laughing all that much. Comedy doesn't particularly have to make you laugh out loud, just look at satire.

I fear the majority of naysayers got too accustomed to the slight Americanisms in SOTD and HF, and failed to appreciate what a bleak, thoroughly British comedy is.

that is to say Shaun of the Dead is great as a funny zombie movie, but it's a pretty godawful rom-com.
and Hot Fuzz is a funny(enough) action movie, but a truly godawful English Country Horror film.

but The World's End was everything I wanted and more – it was riotously funny, as is expected from such a talented cast (especially Nick Frost!) but also had a relatively mature and gripping story that (admittedly) has to get a bit heavy-handed with exposition for the invasion at the end, but only in an effort to give more time to serve both the comedic and dramatic elements of the central narrative beforehand – it's not a story about aliens, it's a story about the beauty, danger and ultimate horror of nostalgia…

it's a truly satisfying and thankfully more cohesive end to the Blood & Ice-Cream Trilogy… and with a great epilogue that owes a lot to Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness!

Other things that were great about the SoD and HF was the clever use of editing for comic effect. All those little quick cuts which were actually gags showing events were missing here save for two times (pints being pulled and seatbelts being put on), so nothing in terms of funny edits comparable to SoD's 'go round Mum's/ whack Phillip/ have a cup of tea etc

The film was stale. The introduction was too long, the story inaccessible or unrelatable for most people and the pay off disappointing. The editing was poor and the screenplay was just not well written or funny enough for the name of the film to be spoken in the same sentence as Shaun or Hot Fuzz.

Sorry A-MAN but you must have been watching a different film to me and the theatre I was in. My auditorium was packed and I could count the laughs we all had on one hand for the whole movie. The cinema was packed but silent for most of the film. Most conversations I heard on the way out were people saying they thought it was shit. That I would not have believed had I not been there and seen it for myself.