Tagline: Who’s up for a close encounter?
Curiosity: My beloved BFFs Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are back! And they’re working with American laughmeisters like Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and Joe Lo Truglio.
Plot: Now that they’ve finally made it to America for Comic-Con, English sci-fi nerds Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) decide to celebrate by taking a tour of the country’s most famous UFO hotspots. Things quickly go awry, though. First they piss off some local rednecks (David Koechner, some other guy).
THEN THEY MEET A FRICKIN’ ALIEN NAMED PAUL (Rogen).
After befriending the eponymous Paul, Graeme and Clive decide to help him get back home, befriending the uber-Christian Ruth (Wiig) along the way.
Thoughts: I liked Paul. It’s not as consistently funny as Pegg’s most revered works (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), but it has a sweetness to it that compensates. The film is a love letter to science fiction, and Steven Spielberg in particular. Much like Pegg’s best work, Paul is stuffed with references to sci-fi’s finest moments.
That said, it drags a little in the middle. Wiig’s love interest Ruth doesn’t feel like a fully formed person. Her character ignites a debate about creationism versus science, which by association questions the existence of a God, but the movie can’t comfortably slip in such a Big IssueTM comfortably. Paul stalls for a moment, but then picks back up once Ruth drops it.
Director Greg Mottola won me over with Adventureland, but I found myself constantly comparing him to Pegg and Frost’s good buddy Edgar Wright, who helmed that holy trinity of British comedy listed above. The film looks good overall and Paul looks great, but part of me wanted to see Wright’s take on the material, if only because I find his cinematography to be a little more compelling. Hot Fuzz had some amazing establishing shots and action scenes. Pegg and Frost have called Paul a tribute to America in addition to sci-fi, but Mottola doesn’t really do much with his sets. I didn’t get much American sentiment out of the film besides A) rednecks are c-c-c-crazy and violent and B) we totally have the best nerd culture.
Still, Paul is a nice balance between Pegg’s nerd love and Rogen’s crass druggy humor. It’s a little more dependent on familiarity with its references than Pegg’s other works (Hot Fuzz, for example, is a legitimately good buddy picture. It helps to be aware of Bad Boys II and Point Break, but it’s not essential), but the film covers such a great swath of sci-fi. It’s a cult movie for a quite sizeable cult.
Reflection: Blythe Danner is in this movie for like five minutes and she gets the two best jokes.
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