Paul 2011

Paul 2011

Paul was a movie I had been looking forward to for some time.  It stars the awesome comedy duo Nick Frost and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead 2004, Hot Fuzz 2007, and the Britcom about slackers Spaced).  They are a comedy set that has turned out cult classic comedies based on a tried recipe of geek humor and pop culture references.  I read a few interviews with the pair leading up to the release of Paul and I had the impression they were attempting a less referential style with a more mainstream appeal.  The inclusion of American mainstream comedy actor Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express 2008, Knocked Up 2007, The 40 Year Old Virgin 2005) as the voice of Paul reinforced that idea.  I wondered how a movie that starts with two British blokes going to Comic-Con would have mass appeal, but geek culture has been becoming the dominant sub-40-year-old culture for years. Because I had this bias going into Paul, I got a great surprise.  Pegg and Frost continued using their famous recipe of referencing geek culture, alien/UFO lore, and occasionally obscure references.  In order to make a movie with broader appeal they added more popular culture references and allowed the humor to dwell mostly on more famous sci-fi using multiple references to the Star Wars series and the classic UFO film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).  This should allow the movie to be accessible to a larger audience, but may sacrifice the cult following of Pegg and Frost's earlier works.

The comedy duo of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg really forms the core of this movie and their fans should feel right at home.  The pair brings in their usual chemistry and fall into their usual roles with Pegg going after a girl and Frost having a bordering on obsession friendship with Pegg.  The chemistry works great, but is not exceptional. Rogen plays the voice of the alien Paul.  He turns in a good performance and delivers his lines with good comedic timing, but somehow the big stoner voice of Rogen never really jived with the tiny surfer style CGI alien on screen.  I think this was more of a casting problem, but it never really detracts from this mostly silly adventure.

In this film the love interest is played by cute and funny Kristen Wiig (best known from SNL, but recently did well in the deliberately bad MacGruber in 2010).  Her character starts as a religious person and this is used to set up multiple gags on evolution/creationism and hardcore hillbilly Christianity.  Her character's main role is to set up a romantic appeal for the movie, but she delivers the best performance of the reality shattering truth that aliens exist and are talking to you.  Despite fainting gags the rest of the cast seem to mostly take Paul in stride, but Wiig's character genuinely struggles with the truth that her religion is false and everything she knows is being shaken up including her morality and relationship to her crazy hillbilly dad.  Wiig's character and her story should upset many religious people and I suggest keeping your more religious friends and family away from this film or you might end up getting an earful.  Her acting is the most notable in the film, but this is a fun comedy and the cast's acting is pretty bad throughout.

Pegg and Frost's previous greats were all with Director Edgar Wright who worked with them on Spaced, Shaun, and Hot Fuzz.  I was worried about Wright not being the director on Paul, but Director Greg Mottola does nearly as well.  The effects, music, and shots from this film don't stand out and lack some of crazy ideas from earlier Pegg and Frost films, but they all work in the film and have good comedic elements.

I have to say that I did not enjoy this film as much as Shaun of the Dead, but it was close to on par with Hot Fuzz.  Paul worked a lot better for me than Pegg's work without partner Frost such as Run, Fatboy, Run (2007).  Overall I think the movie was a great sci-fi comedy and contained such great pop culture references and cameos that most people should find a good laugh.  I would recommend this movie to fans of Frost and Pegg or people who like geek reference comedies like Fanboys (2008).

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