Directed by Edgar Wright. Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Paddy Considine. Rated 14A.

The yearning for lost youth informs many movies, both because of that theme’s universality and because filmmakers rarely grow up.

Maturity is not what you’d expect of U.K. director Edgar Wright, here writing his third feature alongside Simon Pegg, after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. But the thoughtful parts of The World’s End are some of the best.

And sometimes they happen while you’re laughing your ass off.

Pegg’s Gary King is an alcoholic ne’er-do-well who gets his best idea ever—perhaps his only idea ever—in rehab: to re-create a fabled pub crawl he and his four best mates never quite completed upon their high-school graduation, way back in 1990.

Played by frequent collaborators Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Paddy Considine, and cast standout Nick Frost (who goes back to the Spaced days)—all working nicely against type—these London-based pals have done much better than this trench-coated, ciggy-puffing Peter Pan. Somehow, his deeply irritating charm prevails, and everyone agrees to spend a soggy weekend in their fictional hometown of Newton Haven, where a dozen pubs are laid out like a potentially lethal version of Snakes and Ladders. Cue the Happy fooking Mondays now!

Although I’ll avoid giving away what they find there, all the trailers show our lads having multiple run-ins with (literally) blue-blooded robots from outer space, so there you are. Coupled with beyond-funny performers and Wright’s trademark visual flair, full of pint (or Cornetto) -size details, the profane script is endlessly witty.

And until it bogs down in multiple endings that could have been trimmed or even dropped, it operates as a surprisingly piercing metaphor for everyone’s central fear while facing middle age, that of being replaced. If not by slick aliens then by something even worse: your parents!