Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have perfected the role of blubbering, awkward buffoons. “Paul” is the proof.
The film takes on equal amounts of nerdy cultural references, slapstick, potty mouth humor and subtler, yet refined adventure elements well enough to make it a movie worth watching.Long time friends and collaborators Frost and Pegg star as two English tourists and alien enthusiasts. The geeks vacation to the U.S. for a visit to Comic-Con and several major alien hot spots in the western half of the country.
Discovering Paul after Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) nearly run over him, Paul tells the two to hide him and drive north. The antagonists, Special Agent Lorenzo Zoil (Jason Bateman) and his stupidly hilarious cohorts Agent Haggard (Bill Hader) and Agent O’Reilly (Joe Lo Truglio) provide for a great cast. Rounded out by Kristen Wiig, playing the role of a one-eyed, Bible-clenching super Christian who befriends and joins the Englishmen and alien on their journey.
The film’s strength is in the characters. Every character is hilarious, but Paul himself. Rogen’s voice performance seemed lacking. His voice doesn’t fit the bill for Paul, who is brash, eccentric, and very sarcastic, which sounds like something Rogen could voice beautifully but it comes off as disjointed and awkward. The humor is split between easily digestible morsels of stupidity, such as Agent O’Reilly’s first encounter with Paul that left him crying and fanning his hands like a teenage girl, and more subtle stupidity that may not be funny to the casual viewer. Clive speaks to Graeme in Klingon, a language derived from the “Star Trek” series while attempting to brandish a fancy looking sword that readily crumbles in his hands.
If any or all of that sounds like it’d make you laugh, chances are you would enjoy “Paul.” References to various sci-fi conventions are made far and wide, used as a crutch more than a basis for humor. That may be the deciding factor of the film. Laughing at the quick slapstick humor can only make a viewer so happy. “Paul” is a film that begs to have its more subtle humor and references appreciated in order for it’s viewers to get the full experience.
