Edward G. Robinson made 14 films between 1930 and 1932. Robinson went to Universal for "Night Ride" (1930) and MGM for "A Lady to Love" (1930) directed by Victor Sjöström. At Universal he was in "Outside the Law" and "East Is West" (both 1930), then he did "The Widow from Chicago" (1931) at First National. Robinson was established as a film actor. What made him a star was an acclaimed performance as the gangster Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello in "Little Caesar" (1931) at Warner Bros. Robinson signed a long term contract with Warners. They put him in another gangster film, "Smart Money" (1931),
This Is the End self-deprecating performances and enough guffaw-inducing humor make up for the flaws in "This Is the End"s loosely written script." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a letter grade of "A", saying, "You could sit through a year's worth of Hollywood comedies and still not see anything that's genuinely knock-your-socks-off audacious. But "This Is the End" . . truly is.