PAUL – Review

Directors: Greg Mottola

Cast: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader

PAUL sees the reuniting of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg  playing two slightly odd, socially awkward, best friends who manage to stumble across something life-changing accidentally, which manages to put them in a great deal of peril. Does that by any chance sound familiar? Well, yes. But this time, they are joined by a small, green, alien named Paul (Seth Rogen)…who somehow seems to know more about how to live life as a human than Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost).

Initially, the duo of Pegg and Frost became an instant hit in cult TV show Spaced back 1999, and took that popularity and morphed it in to the hilarious take on a zombie-uprising Shaun of the Dead, which could arguably be one of the best zombie movies around. Unsurprisingly, it was a huge hit with audiences and critics alike, (maybe because of director Edgar Wright’s masterful ability to create something face-paced, clever, and rather terrifying all at the same time); Simon Pegg and Nick Frost proved they had buckets of chemistry and comically could bounce off of each other with complete ease.  Following this, they managed to re-create most of that humour, somewhat successfully with Hot Fuzz. Some people were sceptical of how great Hot Fuzz could be; it did after all have the same stars, same writers and same director as Shaun of the Dead, yet still just about managed to hold its own.

It was no surprise then, that when PAUL trailers began to surface people were cynical and doubted the duo, writing the film off as merely the next reincarnation of Shaun of the Dead. However, it isn’t. PAUL tells the tale of Gollings and Willy, two childhood friends and major nerds – Gollings a sci-fi writer and Willy being his illustrator – who have travelled to America for the first time to attend the comic-book convention Comic Con, fulfilling one of their childhood dreams. They then intend on renting a Winnebago and travelling around America, visiting some of the most famous UFO hotspots, but en route discover amidst a car accident, Paul. Paul, who has recently escaped from a Government facility, plans on being picked up by his mother ship and heading back to his home galaxy, but needs some help getting to the destination of his pick up, so enlists the help of the comic-book geeks. Of course, this doesn’t go smoothly; Paul’s escape didn’t go un-noticed and has government agents, in the forms of Jason Bateman, Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio, (who you’ll best recognise as the crazy driver who backs into Seth in Superbad), are hot on his trail. Also on their travels, Gollings and Willy inadvertently manage to kidnap a trailer-park attendant, Ruth (Wiig), a devout Christian who refuses to believe anything exists outside of Earth and that humans are the only intelligent beings that exist, formed by God.

I’ll be the first to admit that yes, I was one of the sceptics that feared this would be predictable and monotonous, replaying the same gags we’ve seen before by Pegg and Frost, but the addition of Seth Rogen (even if he is only an animated alien in the film), definitely twisted my arm into seeing it. Rogen manages, seemingly effortlessly through his instantly recognisable voice, to be both hilarious, rude and a character that we being to care deeply about. And so for that, I’m glad I did take the time to see it. The film IS funny, it IS surprisingly fresh, and it IS overall a good film. Sure, there are some faults; Ruth’s faith is impeccably destroyed by Paul a little to quickly; Pegg and Frost aren’t really the stars they should be in it, being overcast by the supporting roles; and the cameos that appear are a little underwhelming (if not obvious). Mottola – who directed Superbad, Pineapple Express and Adventure Land – doesn’t quite manage to make the film as exciting as I think he could have, and without the genius casting of the supporting roles, I do fear this film would have been terribly predictable and tedious. However, I’m yet to see a film with Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio , Seth Rogen, and Kristen Wiig that I haven’t enjoyed, and really, they make this film what it is: a refreshingly subtle and funny tale about a shockingly loveable and human alien.