On the surface , Simon Pegg and Nick Frost ’s Paul looks like a drug - and - sex - addled reimagining of E.T .. But Paul , opening today , is in reality also about how America is an alien major planet .
raider ahead …
In Paul , Pegg and Frost ( who co - wrote the script ) play two British nerd who confab San Diego Comic Con and then travel across the U.S. in an R.V. , visiting UFO hotspots . And then they meet a literal - life alien , the foul - mouthed but extremely cordial Paul ( voiced by Seth Rogen ) . He ’s on the run from the government activity , which wants to dissect him , and he need to reconnect with his fellow aliens so he can get off this careen .
You ’d expect most of the humor in the film to stem from the finish clash between human beings and an alien — especially what with the human beings being nerds , with unrealistic expectation of alien living , and so on . But in fact , Paul has been on Earth for ten and already get it on everything about our pop culture . ( In fact , we chance out at one point that he aid to invigorate a lot of it — and there ’s a intellect why pop up culture versions of outlander all look just like Paul . )
So instead , the big culture clash in the film comes between the two Brits and that most monstrous of alien species … the Yanks .
I think this is the first Pegg / Frost moving-picture show that ’s set in America , rather than Britain , and this changes a lot . Even more than the substitution of Greg Mottola for their common director , Edgar Wright , the move to America shifts the whole dynamic of their human relationship and their humor . Almost everybody that Pegg and Frost meets in America is a redneck , a trailer - lie Jesus Freak , a scary gas nut or a administration stooge . And that ’s shivery than any extraterrestrial creature could ever be .
Most of Paul plays out as a Salmon P. Chase movie , which is sort of like a siege in a way . Everybody ’s trying to get at this R.V. , which has the two British nerd and their alien acquaintance in it . ( And then finally , the R.V. hold Kristen Wiig ’s laggard - Mungo Park princess as well . ) So in a sense , the two nerds and the extraterrestrial being are trying to escape from a world that does n’t understand them , and it ’s a bit of a metaphor for what it ’s like to be a nerd for real .
Paul becomes sort of a genial mentor and grouchy big brother to the two nerds , enlarge their horizons and helping them to loosen up while they help him escape from the political science agents and everyone else . Rogen is fairly piquant , doing his common cuddly stoner shtick as the articulation of a cartoony extraterrestrial being , and he complicates the already complicated bromance between Pegg and Frost . The bits where Paul is getting the two guys ( and Wiig ) to loosen up are the funnest parts , specially the scene where they ’re just seat around a campfire .
Watching Paul , I was left with the depression that Pegg and Frost really desire this to be their first really big megahit hit in the United States . So they team up up with a talented American film director , Mottola , enlisted a net ton of great American stars , and tried to make their nerdy , off - kilter humor as mainstream as they could . According to Box Office Mojo , Shaun of the Dead made a honorable $ 13.5 million Stateside , and Hot Fuzz made $ 23.6 million . Pegg ’s solo film , Run Fat Boy go and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People , did n’t do as well here . Paul has to do way better than those other movies , just to justify its estimated $ 40 million yield budget .
So what you have , in Paul , is an endeavour at a mainstream picture show by a mates of God Almighty who are better at verbalise to a recession audience . And the result is sort of a easy , precious comedy with few of the rough edge of the early Pegg / Frost collaborationism .
The most memorable part of the film , for me , is the part that a lot of other reviewers have singled out as a faint spot : Kristen Wiig ’s Jesus love trailer - park girl who realise her whole worldview is amiss . Ruth ’s eye are opened ( literally – she has an eye job , which Paul fixes using his foreign world power . ) And she see that her narrow fundamentalist outlook ca n’t accommodate someone like Paul . So she goes to the other extremum , cussing ineptly and essay to have casual sex , to make up for confused time . It ’s a bully spin on the idea that meeting an alien would change your world - view , and the most imaginative part of the movie .
The sleep of the cast is uniformly great , too : Jason Bateman is just as much fun to watch out as common , as the FBI federal agent hunt the alien , Lorenzo Zoil . And Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio are also good as clueless arena agents , assign to assist Bateman . When Sigourney Weaver shows up as Bateman ’s malevolent genus Bos , she ’s totally attached to filthiness , and proves once again that she ’s actually a funniness brain . Jane Lynch is cunning as a waitress as a UFO truck stop . And Jeffrey Tambor ’s brief role as a self - aggrandizing skill fiction source really is as mad and beautiful as you ’d require .
But a fate of the actual jokes return a bit flat . I lost count of how many times the great unwashed mistake Pegg and Frost for a gay duo , but it cease being funny after the first couple times . The wonk in - trick , like cite to Star Trek , Star Wars or the work of Steven Spielberg , are cute , but few of them live up to the reenactment of an iconic Star Trek fight scene early on . The redneck stereotype are lazy . Most of the funniest bits with Paul are in the laggard .
fundamentally , Paul is a perfectly hardy comedy that never becomes epically suspect . Pegg and Frost are just as lovable and watchable as ever , and the huge star - dot plaster bandage is lot of fun . But it ’s not in the same league as Pegg and Frost ’s early attempt , by any stretch of the imagination . And I ca n’t avail wondering if part of the reason is because these creators are good off making more films in their aboriginal land , instead of add up to Planet America .
AliensComedyKristen WiigMoviesNick Robert Lee Frost
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