From left, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, Simon Pegg, Paddy Considine and Martin Freeman in a scene from “The World’s End.”

Sci-fi movies, we all know, create unlikely heroes, and this summer is no exception.

Remember Brad Pitt as a U.N. inspector in “World War Z”? He just wanted to hang at home with his family, but he had to save the world from raging zombies. And Matt Damon in “Elysium”? He played a reformed car thief who just wanted to heal himself – and suddenly, he needed to rescue the planet.

But Simon Pegg in “The World’s End,” the latest work of brilliant inanity from director Edgar Wright, takes this whole reluctant-savior-of-humanity thing to a new plane. Twenty years after high school, Pegg’s scruffy, unshaven, never-gonna-grow-up, substance-abusing Gary can’t hold down a job. His idea of a relationship is a quick tryst in the loo of a pub. This is a guy who’s gonna save us – or at least, parts of suburban England – from an alien invasion? Lord help us. Read more.

Favorite apocalypse movie?

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