JOINTLY written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, starring Rogen and a bunch of his buddies playing themselves, this apocalyptic comedy scratches the surface of celebrity lifestyle and morality among people who hover moth-like around evanescent fame unjustified by achievements that don’t stand up to enduring scrutiny.

Jay Baruchel arrives in LA to spend a weekend with Rogen. There is a party going on at James Franco’s mansion. Let’s go and get high on whatever’s going.

Then the San Andreas fault lets go, reducing Hollywoodland to burning rubble and crustal chasms leading directly down to the magma. What’s to do? How does a tribe of hedonists deal with this kind of calamity?

With selfishness, gutter language, revelations of celebrities’ true feelings about themselves and their competitors, internal monologues about the unfairness of it all, destruction of property, equal sharing of resources between people for whom sharing is a novelty, scatalogical gags, penis-size comparisons and Emma Watson defending herself with an axe on hearing speculation about rape.

This goes on for a little more than half the film’s length, until Jonah Hill succumbs to possession by an evil spirit that needs exorcising. A minotaur with flaming eyes and nasty disposition gets in the act. One by one, the celebrity cast gets taken up to rejoin the party-goers in Heaven.

Many will find that finale offensive. Others will have already taken offence. A little more wisdom and restraint might well have improved the film’s ambience. No deity of any faith appears.

At Dendy, Hoyts and Limelight