It seems to me that it was only a matter of time before the majestic ability of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost was sought for domestic import. If you have been watching movies over the last eight years, it’s likely you’ve heard of Pegg and Frost’s film efforts. You may have not seen them, but surely you have heard of the cult status belonging to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. With both films being homages to genre based filmmaking, Pegg and Frost garnered critical acclaim and were unofficially labeled cult-comedy heroes. Despite their relative success, it seems it was only a matter of time before Pegg and Frost tried their hand at a major vehicle in the Hollywood system. Enter in this year’s comedy Paul, a road trip film with an intergalactic twist. Written by Pegg and Frost, Paul is another exercise in genre filmmaking. With the excellent Greg Mottola in the director’s chair, Pegg and Frost set their sights on the sci-fi genre while attempting to breathe new life into the road trip film. I’d say they do enough to deliver an enjoyable experience, but they fail to capture the magic of their previous endeavors.
The story of Paul begins with Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost), two self-prescribed nerds who are fulfilling a lifetime dream: visiting Comic-Con and hitting America’s open road in an attempt to visit alien hot spots. Caught in a land that doesn’t entirely understand their unrelenting friendship nor their interest in the otherworldly, Graeme and Clive move from point to point in a RV, interacting awkwardly with the locals. Things change for the boys though when, on a desolate strip of pavement, they meet an escaped alien by the name of Paul (voice of Seth Rogen). Paul’s physical stature is reminiscent of the aliens you’d find in 50’s comic books or television shows, a notion that leads to a rather clever joke. Nonetheless, after many incredulous questions about Paul’s existence and his potential interest in anal probing, Graeme and Clive attempt to get Paul to his desired destination. Of course, with Paul being an escapee from the government, hot on his trails is an FBI agent (Jason Bateman) who viciously rips through the Southwestern terrain in pursuit of Paul and his new cohorts. Along the way, aside from aiding and embedding an intergalactic target, Graeme meets a love interest in Ruth Buggs (Kristin Wiig), a one-eyed Christian who the socially inept nerds end up kidnapping.
All of this madness leads to an action driven finale that ends up rolling into the territory of self-parody while hinging on a plot point that is easily recognized from the beginning of the film. The screenplay by Pegg and Frost is modest and thoughtful. It’s full of well-timed riffs on the sci-fi universe, but the script can’t convincingly handle the massive tonal shifts at the end and avoid genre clichés. With that being said, the screenplay delivers enough funny material to buffer its other issues. The same can’t be said for the performances of Pegg and Frost. It’s the execution of Pegg and Frost that fail to lift the film from a charming spoof to a hilarious genre busting film. Although Pegg and Frost give gentle, enjoyable performances, they often fall to the background when the supporting characters come on screen. With the likes of Bateman, Wiig, and the terrific voice-work of Seth Rogen in play, it’s easy to see how Pegg and Frost can be overpowered. Yet what’s disappointing is when the leads are worked over in the laughs department by Bill Hader and Joe Lo Trugilo, two perpetual character actors that deliver the film’s best material in the least amount of screen time.
Despite the film’s flaws and the leads disappearing at times, Paul boasts an assortment of pop-culture Easter eggs that are fun to discover. Certainly it will take a viewer with a certain cache to understand all of the film’s nods and winks, but those who do partake in such a hunt will undoubtedly find a certain amount of replay value in Paul. The in-jokes are the most obvious expectation, but the film’s hidden gem is the special effects. More specifically, the design and implementation of Paul himself is done extremely well. Through the use of CGI and terrific motion capture, Paul is a marvel on screen as he organically interacts with the characters and environment that surround him. It’s a pleasant surprise that amplifies the wonderful voice work of Rogen. With terrific special effects and some fun jokes in hand, Paul had the chance to be a fantastic movie. But it isn’t. Instead, Paul is an enjoyable film that has moments of brilliance that are undermined by detours and dead ends along the way.
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