Joshua Oppenheimer's film is billed as a "post-apocalyptic musical" with a "bold vision", said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Now, I am all for "bold visions", but maybe not if they have no plot and run for two and a half hours (I really feared "The End" might never end).
'Comically bad'
They are cared for by various servants and spend their days in idle luxury, occasionally performing musical numbers – but not very competently: one dance scene is "so comically bad that I only hope (and pray) that it was intentional".
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'Sharp as sushi knives'
The action "jolts forward" when an outsider (Moses Ingram) somehow enters the bunker, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times. The cast – MacKay in particular – are "sharp as sushi knives" and it all looks superb.
But sadly "The End" is not the "uncompromising masterpiece" it aspires to be, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. Oppenheimer's decision to frame a "story of guilt, grief, eco-disaster and the unimaginable cost of privilege" as a musical falls flat: put simply, its songs "just aren't very good". And though the film has moments of brilliance, it is too long and "catastrophically self-indulgent". What is really "frustrating", however, is just "how close it comes to greatness".
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