Paul Movie Reviews .. The comedic duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, best known for their lead roles in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, reunite for the comedy adventure Paul as two sci-fi geeks whose pilgrimage takes them to America’s UFO heartland. While there, they accidentally meet an alien who brings them on an insane road trip that alters their universe forever. For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul (Seth Rogen) has been hanging out at a top-secret military base. For reasons unknown, the space traveling smart ass decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town, which just happens to be a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy ( Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings ( Nick Frost). Chased by federal agents and the fanatical father of a young woman that they accidentally kidnap, Graeme and Clive hatch a fumbling escape plan to return Paul to his mother ship. And as two nerds struggle to help, one little green man might just transform his fellow outcasts from misfits to intergalactic heroes. Seeing the faces of the great comedic duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost should make you want to instantly see this film the second it is released. This is the same team that brought you the cult classic films Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007) that have since found great critical success. For those out there already fans of this comedy team, you will notice that there is an element missing from this comedy in the form of Edgar Wright. Edgar Wright was the screenwriter and director of both of the above films, but when it came time to direct Paul, his plate was already full with other projects. So the question that lingers throughout this film is what kind of film would Paul be if Wright wrote and directed it instead of director Greg Mottola? This is a question that we will never be able to answer, but what we can say about Paul and director Mottola is that it was a pretty great comedic film. Although it is nothing more than speculation, I’d suspect a more clever satirical script to come from Wright, but what we got in the form of Paul is nothing to shrug off. Sure it won’t capture the cult status that was accomplished by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, but as it is, Paul is a great piece of “fan boy” sci-fi cinema. Of course no buddy film would be anything without the buddy of buddy films Seth Rogan, who lends his voice to the ETish alien Paul. With Paul, which was written by comedic stars Pegg and Frost, although minus Edgar Wright, it seems like they’ve reached a point in their relationship with pop culture where they’re just going through the motions. You can clearly see the level of comfort that these two actor greats possess as they go about their “business as usual” routine in a completely nonchalant manner. Unlike their films Shaun of the Dead and Ht Fuzz that proved to be full on homage to their source materials, Paul on the other hand is a literal and spiritless spoof, with precise plotpoints that its characters travel through one at a time, that of course includes a few throw-ins from films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) or E.T. (1982). It actually reads like an assignment into sci-fi pop culture, and plays like a Saturday Night Live spin-off movie. Like any true fan boy flick, Paul begins at the Mecca of fanboyism: the San Diego Comic-Con. Having lived the San Diego dream, best buds Graeme (Simon Pegg) and smalltime sci-fi writer Clive (Nick Frost) head out in a rented Winnebago to their ultimate bucket-list destination, Area 51, with a stop at the fabled Little A’Le’Inn, a Nevada rest-stop on the Extraterrestrial Highway that must be a perpetual goldmine for its owners. This of course leads the friends to discover Paul, the wise-cracking variety of E.T., imagine Roger on the American Dad television show. He brings along the most powerful pot ever developed by the government as an icebreaker, which later turns out to be a necessary accessory since people have a tendency to faint when they meet him. But when push comes to show, this is one movie that has the text book fan boy ending that is very closely resembles that of E.T. Although this is not one of the greatest comedies of all time, it is a comedy that will no doubt make it on to many top ten lists of favourite comedies. The problem with the film was that it was perhaps a little too hooky in some places that lowered the bar considerably from Simon Peg and Nick Frost’s past films that are now considered cult classics, which is perhaps a bit too unfair for Paul. Paul is a hilarious film that most people will have fun with because it is a great comedy and a well written one at that. The problem that it faces at the box office is that it is a R rated “spoof” comedy about aliens, and there are many people that hate both spoof flicks and alien flicks. Perhaps the main drawing point for most audience members are the three lead actors being Simn Pegg, Nick Frost, and the always talented Seth Rogan. Let me say right now that if I ever meet an alien, I hope that he too has the laid back voice of Seth Rogan to ease me into abduction. That is not to say that the secondary characters weren’t also great. The one-eyed Jesus-praising girl from a trailer home, played by Kristen Wiig, is absolutely hilarious as we watch her anti-evolutionary theories sarcastically shot down by Paul. Add John Carroll Lynch to the mix as Wiig’s insane gun-toting pappy who thinks his daughter’s been kidnapped by a demon and outruns the feds en route to saving her, plus a couple of goofball federal agents played by Bill Hader and Joe Lo Trugio, who don’t really know what they’re chasing and you may just be in for the time of your life. This is a film that has a lot going for it, and I’m sure you will enjoy it. Just remember that it is rated R, but it is by far the best comedy of the year thus far.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 10:46:24 +0000
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