Paul

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are a pair of nerds visiting the USA. By which I mean, in this context, they are playing the characters of a pair of nerds visiting the USA, in addition to their general state of nerd-dom, and their undoubted presence in the USA to make a motion picture.

Anyway, they're in the USA, visiting San Diego Comic-Con, and then decide to take a road trip in an RV through desert country, visiting the various UFO hotspots. And, soon enough on their journey, they run into a Real Live Alien, who's fleeing the authorities. Turns out he's called Paul, crash landed in 1947, and has been with the government ever since. And hence is so familiar with earth culture that the weirdest thing about him is how unweird he is. He does, however, fall into the "big head, big eyes, small body" Little Green Man stereotype, and so he's a bit conspicuous. The boys agree to help him travel north, to somewhere he can be rescued, and a Buddy Road Movie Comedy Ensues. Along the way, they pick up a fundamentalist Christian girl (Kristen Wiig), who becomes a born-again atheist in the face of the existence of life on other planets, and are pursued, variously, by a pair of hapless Secret Service Guys, a pretty competent Secret Service Guy (Jason Bateman) and the girl's fundamentalist father, who's convinced the devil has kidnapped her.

Anyway, the whole thing jollys along in an pretty predictable way, until we reach the inevitable conclusion. Really, there are no bits where you're thinking "hmmm, I wonder where they're going with this?" But, for all that, this is still Simon Pegg and Nick Frost at work/play, and so while the plot is predictable, the dialogue and the gags are great.

Performances... well, Simon and Nick are as we've always known them; Simon's more bumbling idiot than in Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, and Nick is somewhat less, which means they're close to meeting in the middle. It's the same basic double act that we're quite familiar with, though, a nerdy bromance which seems to preclude female company, however much they might want it. This is a good thing and a bad thing. Bad, because we know this joke of old. Good, because we love this joke of old.

Kristen Wiig is a great choice, in that she's very funny, very sexy, and *38*. In films, there's usually a tiresome need to pair a fortysomething (or more) male with a twentysomething female, and it's sometimes as if women between 29 and 50 don't even exist. So, patting them on the back for making a casting decision which is both absolutely right, but also so infuriatingly rare these days.

Seth Rogen... well, much as I like the guy, this wasn't the right choice. Sorry. Not because Seth Rogen isn't good, he is, I heart Seth Rogen. It's that he wasn't there for the filming. I recall an Andy Serkis interview regarding the voicing of Gollum, and how he was present on set even when they weren't going to be filming him, because it was vital that he be running his lines with the on-screen actors. That's not what happened here, because Seth Rogen was too busy and expensive. Instead, apparently, they had a guy run his lines for him on set (one of the guys playing a clueless Secret Service guy apparently), then had Seth Rogen dub the lines in some booth somewhere after the fact. And this shows, I'm afraid. Not all the time, but enough for Paul to seem pretty disconnected from the naturalistic madcappery coming out of Simon, Nick and Kristen. And that's a big problem if your film's called "Paul."

The only other criticism I have, if you can call it that, is that this is pretty lightweight fare, compared to Shaun of the Dead. Both Shaun and Hot Fuzz managed a very clever trick of being both a spoof of a genre, but also a pretty good example of the genre. This, however, is firmly a buddy comedy, and while it references sci-fi heavily (though not as heavily as it might, given who made it) it's no sci-fi movie itself. The other thing I'd observe, you may not realise how much of a fan of Edgar Wright you are until you see someone else directing Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

All in all, while this isn't a hardcore geek comedy, it is a pretty funny, geek-friendly mainstream comedy film.