“Are you an alien?” “To you I am yes.”
Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost) are on vacation. They started with the wonderland of the San Diego Comic-Con and are now taking a road trip across America to all the alien hot spots along the way to Area 51. One night on a dark highway they see a car driving erratically and crashing. They stop to assist. The driver is an alien named Paul (voice of Seth Rogan). Graeme agrees to give the alien a ride but the men in black are on their trail.
They decide to stop at an RV park for a night. The park is run by a Christian Fundamentalist (John Carroll Lynch) and his overly sheltered daughter Ruth (Kristen Wiig). When she finds out about Paul the crew beats a hasty retreat kidnapping Ruth. In addition to the G-men, now daddy is on the warpath after the two hapless nerds. It’s a race to get Paul to the mother ship while avoiding G-men, red necks and irate fathers.
“Paul” was released in 2011 and was directed by Greg Mottola. It is a British-American venture. The stars of this little film are Simon Pegg as Graeme Willy and Nick Frost as Clive Gollings. The voice of Paul is Seth Rogen. Additional humor is provided by Jason Batemen, Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio, Sigourney Weaver, and the voice of Steven Spielberg.
I’m usually not big on comedies. I just don’t find them all that funny. However, when you add aliens, you can pretty much throw in every stereotype and anti-stereotype you can think of. “Paul” does that. You have two nerdy tourists from England with an RV going to comic-con and traveling to Area 51 to see all the sights. Next you have an alien escapee from a military installation on the run. Put the two together and sparks fly. Especially if the alien is more street savvy than the locals. Add in a couple men in black chasing them and a couple inbred locals and not only do sparks fly but so do bullets.
“Paul” is an adult comedy so there is a lot of swearing. Some people may find it objectionable; however, it’s no worse than what you’ve heard from POTUS. There is also a lot of blue comedy. Simon and Nick came up with the concept of the movie based on their love for Spielberg’s movies “Close Encounters” and “E.T.”. There are tons of references in the movie to pop culture, comics and science fiction movies using everything from dialogue, and character names to props and even references in the movie’s music score. Sigourney Weaver referred to the movie as a love letter to sci-fi fans.
It’s a wonderful movie. Hysterical but with sweet parts mixed in. Part buddy movie part trip through sci-fi memory lane. Science Fiction fans should love it. I highly recommend it.