Paul is an
alien, comedy, road-movie that makes fun of nerds, geeks, Christians,
Ufologists, conspiracy mongers and government agents on the back of
Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, E.T. and even
Easy Rider and Duel.
Two English, comic-book fans, Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive
Gollings (Nick Frost), are making a road-trip across the USA to visit
Area 51 and other UFO landmarks, when they literally bump into an alien.
The alien ‘Paul’, crashed his flying saucer on a farm in 1947 and after
being a ‘guest’ of the US government all these years, has escaped
before they carry out a lethal examination of his brain.
As Graeme and Clive take Paul to a rendevous with a rescue ship from
his home planet, they are chased by angry red-necks, a Christian
fundamentalist and the obligatory government agents.
Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) is excellent as the foul-mouthed alien who
literally blows their minds with his knowledge, and like ET he can heal
animals and people. Indeed, in one scene it shows that Paul advised
Steven Spielberg on how he should portray the alien in ET.
There are lots of nerdy references to films and ufolore as portrayed in
films, including Sigourney Weaver as a nasty control freak, but is
still funny even if you don’t get these references.
Be prepared for plenty of swearing in the film, and some surprising
twists and turns in the plot. And, it looks brilliant on blu-ray disc.
One quibble is that the two main characters should have been ufologists
rather than science fiction comic book fans, as the latter tend to look
on ufology with disdain. Though that would have lost many of the geeky
sf references and favoured even more geeky UFO references.
Paul is a very funny look at the portrayal of aliens in the movies.
