Edgar Wright’s new film, “The World’s End” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or more appropriately, a wolf wearing clown shoes.

But I guess I should have expected no more or less of the man responsible for “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.”

For roughly the first half of the movie, the story follows the typical “old friends reliving their younger dreams” plot line. In this case, it follows four middle-aged men who are determined to do a pub crawl that they never managed to finish when they were younger.

Returning to their hometown of Newton Haven, they try to tackle the Golden Mile: 12 pubs, 12 pints.

If this were the entire movie, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much as I did.

However, the overwhelming irony of this cliché is countered by an even more overwhelming premise and plot twist in the movie: the town has been taken over by robots who have assumed the identity of everyone who had previously lived there.

Although this may sound too far-fetched for some people, I think it was tied together well with a script that knew when to be funny and when to be serious.

For me, this balance of human emotion and integrity is what makes the movie a success.

And in the movie’s credit, I am glad that the majority of the humor was situational and not spent on throw-away laughs. It’s reassuring to see successful comedies that know how to make me laugh at a well-developed character.

Hollywood: take notes.