‘Paul’ less promising than it looks
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are clever and endearing fellows. So one could easily expect the British duo of the zombie comedy “Shaun of the Dead” and the cop buddy riff “Hot Fuzz” to make their alien-meets-lads comedy “Paul” an out-of-this-world ride.
Alas, it is not to be. There are chuckles, even some deep guffaws, as sci-fi guys and comic book creators Clive Gollings (Frost) and Graeme Wily (Pegg) hook up with a real alien by the name of, well, you know.
But in the end – as well as the middle, and maybe even at the outset – “Paul” is more often a close encounter of the middling kind.
Too often, the film – penned by Pegg and Frost – unfolds like one long string of inside jokes. There’s “Star Trek,” “Star Wars,” plenty of nods to Steven Spielberg. In a winking moment, a country-Western band plays a familiar ditty in a bar full of rough characters.
Directed by Greg Mottola, “Paul” loves its fanboys but can’t quite maneuver its American folk stereotypes.
Wide-eyed and chattering, Clive and Graeme begin their first jaunt to the U.S. at the fan-driven confab known as Comic-Con road trip before embarking on a road trip to the nation’s extraterrestrial hot spots.
The guys share a nice moment with Pat, the tart owner of a roadside diner that caters to ET-seeking pilgrims, played by Jane Lynch (“Glee”). They also have a too-telegraphed of a run-in with camo-sporting hayseeds.
Off a darkened stretch of two-lane black top, they meet Paul. Seth Rogen provides the wisecracking voice of the pint-size green alien with the huge blue eyes.
Paul crashed in America’s desert Southwest in 1947. Since then, he’s been the guest of a clandestine government operation. Finally, Paul makes a break for it, sensing his usefulness had come to an end.
He’s pursued by Agent Zoil (Jason Bateman). The determined G-man takes his orders from an unseen hardcase whose voice provides yet another pleased-with-itself nudge. Two feds with lesser skills (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio) are also on the case.
With Mottola at the helm and Rogen in the mix, the movie comes with the requisite penis, fart and quasi-enlightened gay jokes.
It’s familiar, not incandescent, comedy. Still the film takes its most ambitious – and tonally complicated – turn when the trio pulls into the Pearly Gates RV Park, where Moses Buggs (John Carroll Lynch) and daughter Ruth live a righteous Christian life.
Forget encounters of the third kind. As played by Kristen Wiig (“Saturday Night Live”), Ruth – the cowed daughter of a fiery father who is in need of some human contact – sports a T-shirt with the words “Evolve This!” and an image of Jesus facing off with Charles Darwin.
What would Jesus do, indeed.