Review: Paul

Much like Gore Verbinski’s recent, lavishly praised animated film Rango, Greg Mottola’s celebration of science-fiction and geek culture, Paul, is deeply referential of American cinema of the last half-century. Subtle Easter-eggs and full-on homages fly fast and furious in both films, especially Paul. The reason you will find very few people raving about this Simon Pegg/Nick Frost reunion as they did the former film, however, is that outside of the references, it has a very thin backbone. That’s not to say there aren’t hoards of small pleasures, however — just that these don’t amount to a complete motion picture. This comes as a disappointment given the pedigree of those involved; Mottola’s Superbad is the reigning 21st Century teen anthem and his Adventureland is a legitimately great film, while Pegg and Frost’s UK spoofs Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are consistently hysterical. But you can’t hit them all and, as far as blips on the resume go, Paul is hardly anything to be embarrassed about.

Many critics have said they found that the opening scenes, in which our geek heroes Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) journey far from their British home to San Diego’s Comic-Con, are sweeter and funnier than the rest. While I agree that Jeffrey Tambor’s aloof writer Adam Shadowchild, who the guys swoon over as he nonchalantly conducts a signing, is a riot, the rest fell surprisingly flat for me. Maybe it’s because I have spent many a Comic-Con fed up with attendees just like Graeme and Clive, who by aimlessly wandering around “the floor” turn the whole event into an unnavigable blur. (Yes, I’m sure I will receive a few e-mails for this heresy, because how dare I pin any of the pains of Comic-Con on the nerds who invented it rather than my fellow movie buffs, who do nothing but falsely “commercialize” the whole ordeal!)

Things get going when Graeme and Clive (referred to by all as “The Writer Clive Gollings” despite never having published a book, in one of the movie’s funnier quips), bound for the most notable American UFO-sites in an RV, run into the title character. With the exception of actor Seth Rogen’s smoker voice, Paul is an alien who conforms to every stereotype Westerners have about extraterrestrials — because they’ve spent years preparing humans for a potential encounter through pop culture, he says. Thanks to Rogen, who did the motion-capture work, Paul is funny and moves in the kind of reckless way you might expect of a foreign being. It’s also the way he awkwardly ran from the cops in Pineapple Express, but never mind that.

Here, Rogen does more of said running from the authorities, only this time it’s the infamous Men in Black (Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, and Joe Lo Truglio), who are hot on his tail. As such, the movie mostly becomes a cat-and-mouse game, which admittedly ditches the development of Graeme and Clive in favor of external plot. However, this isn’t that much of a loss, because Graeme and Clive are designed more as lovable saps than as people you actually like for their personalities. Pegg and Frost’s previous characters were also somewhat trivial–even Frost’s supremely sympathetic Bad Boys II-aficionado in Hot Fuzz, when you think about it–but they won audiences over with the cleverness of their dry British humor, which isn’t present here. To Paul’s detriment, the most interesting things about Graeme and Clive as individuals are trivial, like the aforementioned “Writer” moniker. At least Paul is consistently amusing and infectious — maybe not as human as his Earthling counterparts (he can turn invisible and heal ailments), but considerably more soulful.

As the trio flee their pursuers–you could say Graeme and Clive feel an obligation to help the extraterrestrial as principled geeks–they stay the night at an RV park run by an Evangelical father and daughter. The latter is named Ruth and is played by Kristen Wiig, offering by far the funniest supporting performance out of a varied ensemble that not only includes those already mentioned, but Jane Lynch, Sigourney Weaver, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, and Blythe Danner. (It is a let-down that the laugh-quotient isn’t higher with so many talented comic actors.) Ruth, a brainwashed creationist who clings to Christ, is shocked when she discovers Paul, as he doesn’t exactly fit her limited worldview. She joins the guys for the rest of their trip and, along the way, experiences a sort of cultural and sexual awakening, abandoning the teachings of her father to become a cursing, kissing sinner. While the character will undoubtedly offend uptight social conservatives, she will likely strike everyone else as the sweetest thing about the movie. Not to mention, her budding romance with Graeme, albeit conventional, marks the closest his character ever comes to having three dimensions.

In their discussion of Paul on the new incarnation of “At the Movies”, critics Ignatiy Vishnevetsky and Christie Lemire observed that the action-laden final act is made up mostly of geek reference after geek reference and little else. This is true enough, though I suspect the only ones who will be annoyed are diehard cinephiles. Science-fiction enthusiasts like Graeme and Clive themselves will be the only others to pick up on every allusion, and they will love all of them. The younger generation, who the movie has been sold to, will probably only bat about .250 in spotting these Easter-eggs and, as such, I wonder if piling them on was necessary for mainstream approval. This fact also excuses some of the more inclusive references, such as Paul asking for Reese’s Pieces at a gas station a la E.T. But then again, if the movie intends to be a broad comedy, it must be held accountable for its ultimately low laugh-quotient and, with the exception of Wiig, unmemorable characters / performances. (Had it been darker and targeted a more niche audience, one could have potentially forgiven these deficiencies in light of its specialized approach.) As it is, Paul is sporadically entertaining and pleasant enough, but such faint praise only illustrate that Mottola, Pegg, and Frost should go back to the styles that made them the accomplished filmmakers they are.

* * *

Paul (2011, USA). Produced by Tim Bevan, Liza Chasin, Eric Fellner, Robert Graf, Debra Hayward, Nira Park, and Natascha Wharton. Directed by Greg Mottola. Written for the screen by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio, Jane Lynch, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, Blythe Danner, and Sigourney Weaver. Distributed by Universal Pictures. Rated R, with a running time of 104 minutes.