Paul
Regal Union Square Stadium 14, April 4, 2011
Movie #21 for 2011
I adore SIMON PEGG and NICK FROST (pictured). Who with two eyes and a funny bone doesn’t? One of my very few regrets about leaving Australia recently was that I would miss them at the Melbourne Supernova convention. I know, it’s sad, I know.
In Paul, Pegg and Frost are Graeme and Clive, two English comic geeks who, after San Diego Comic-Con, hire a Winnebago to explore the alien-contact mythology of middle America. On the road near Area 51, they meet Paul (voiced by SETH ROGEN), an alien on the run from his minders. Along the way they pick up a one-eyed born-again woman (KRISTEN WIIG, Whip It!, Flight of the Conchords) for a fairly obvious romantic interest sub-plot. The likewise obvious action part of proceedings kicks in with her father, two rednecks, two FBI agents, the mysterious agent Zoil (JASON BATEMAN, awesome as ever) and “the Big Guy” (SIGOURNEY WEAVER) in hot pursuit of the fugitive Paul.
Frost and Pegg wrote the screenplay and they rip-off everything from E.T. to X-Men to the Alien movies, lovingly, if not terribly cleverly. There’s not much in the plot that isn’t just a propeller to the next joke, which is fine except that most of the jokes are a little ‘myeh’. The best humor comes from Pegg and Frost’s interplay, which is understated and charming, if rehashed from “Spaced” - kind of ripping off themselves, but not quite as good in the retelling. The rest of the humor comes from the Standard Seth Rogen Joke Book of swears, stereotypes and mild offensiveness. So much so that it feels more like a Seth Rogen movie than a Frost/Pegg one.
I know it is difficult to maintain such a high rate of awesomeness (especially when they started out so strong), so I am prepared to be very generous with Frost and Pegg when they offer something less than their greatest work - it should still be okay just for the pure fact of their involvement, right? Err, right? (I ask, remembering debacles like Run, Fatboy, Run, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and The Boat That Rocked).
All in all, Paul makes me regret missing Frost and Pegg touring for this movie a whole bunch less and makes me rather more nostalgic for the time when they were uproariously funny.
