Paul

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I have been sort of geared towards science fiction during the early part of Saturday (starting late Friday night with “Two” of The Twilight Zone), so I watched Paul (2011) while putting together a review for the Star Trek episode, Where No Man Has Gone Before. It is easy to go down although how far it is successful hinges perhaps significantly on your ability to tolerate Sean Rogen’s brand of stoner humor. Your palate for profanity and a nonstop influx of “alien humor” also would be crucial. From the director of such films as Superbad and Adventureland (I really liked the latter…) and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (from Shaun of the Dead) as buds obsessed with all things *little green men* encounter an actual alien, voiced by Rogen, who has been on Earth for 60 years. Spielberg, according to “Paul”, was inspired by the alien for such classics as ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind! Paul escaped from the clutches of Signorney Weaver (how Blythe Danner gets to use an immortal line from Aliens (1986) while punching her out is pure gold!) so she sends her suits (Jason Bateman, along with “newbies” Heder and Lo Truglio) out to fetch him. What results is a chase road movie with plenty of Paul farting in the bathroom of Pegg and Frost’s RV after scarfing down pistachios and Reece’s Peanut Butter cups, comic book and UFO humor, Kristen Wiig’s lapsing Christian’s embrace of foul language, Men in Black shenanigans, and plentiful barbs on buddy movie clichés. But most importantly to the film is the Paul alien CGI creation playing opposite Pegg and Frost where any number of sci-fi and alien gag/joke is offered for those attune to what the writers (Pegg and Frost) consider funny. I thought a lot of the film was funny, but I seem to enjoy Pegg and Frost’s brand of humor. Rogen’s voice is what it is and if you think his vocal expressiveness (and how the CGI alien speaks for him) is hilarious, you might just enjoy Paul. The alien being able to “heal”, provide insight into evolution through the touch of his hand to the heads of those “needing a lesson”, and disappear like a chameleon if he holds his breath, Paul has certain attributes he concealed from Weaver and the government. So the hunt for Paul in the hopes of catching him before he reaches a certain mountain—the spot where a ship piloted by his species will meet him when fireworks shoot off in the sky to get their attention—is on. Will Pegg and Frost (and Wiig who eventually “hitches a ride” with them, romantically bonding with Pegg) be able to get Paul to the mountain before Weaver and her agents catch them? That is the plot in a nutshell. It is an excuse for the humor, though. Rogen is just allowed to have a ball, even as you never see him, behind the voice of Paul. Pegg and Frost react better to nonsense they encounter than pretty much anyone in comedy the last fifteen or so years. Pegg and Wiig are cute as the oddball couple that develops feelings for each other during the road trip (she has a religious fanatic father in pursuit; Paul cures her eye blindness).