They’ve battled zombies, paid homage to a myriad of action films while fighting off a crazed village, and now British comedy duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have returned to take on one genre that is out of this world.
Pegg and Frost play a pair of sci-fi loving best friends named Graeme and Clive, respectively, who embark on a journey across the U.S. to see the country’s most famous alien hot spots. But they’re unaware that their adventure will turn into something straight out of an episode of “The X-Files” when they unexpectedly meet an extra-terrestrial in the flesh. His name is Paul.
Paul, voiced by Seth Rogen, landed on planet Earth when his spaceship crashed in 1947, and since his arrival the government has held him captive in the notorious Area 51 in order to observe and possibly replicate his supernatural healing powers.
Paul’s recent escape results in a full-fledged search for his capture, led by agent Lorenzo Zoil (Jason Bateman) and his ruthless boss “The Big Guy” (who’s not really a guy at all), played by Sigourney Weaver.
After Graeme and Clive almost run into him on a desert road, Paul eventually persuades the flabbergasted pair of comic book geeks to help him outrun frantically searching government agents. But before they can get carried away with the nerdy fantasy playing out before their eyes (does Paul want to probe them?), they fire up their dilapidated camper and head on their way.
Many of the jokes cracked in the film come from Paul, but I wasn’t surprised to find what we were getting was Seth Rogen essentially playing himself as an alien. He’s crude, crass and likes to smoke weed in his free time — stuff we’ve seen a million times over in Rogen’s past films. But Paul’s humor doesn’t necessarily diminish Pegg and Frost’s.
Granted, a good amount of the laughs in film were a bit stale, many of the best moments having been shown in the trailer, the sci-fi spoofed bromance emanates the kooky characteristics we’ve come to love since “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.” I didn’t feel like Pegg and Frost were done being the two guys who we can count on to team up, fight evil and deliver some good laughs.
One thing I definitely wasn’t expecting “Paul” to touch on was the topic of religion versus science. After Graeme and Clive meet the one-eyed, overtly Christian Ruth (Kristen Wiig), she and Paul have a tiff over the existence of God. Paul is unabashedly not religious, but he does have the power to do things some people would call miracles. Although this might seem like a heavy turn for an otherwise lighthearted film, “Paul” balances the subject with enough heart to make it meaningful but the right amount of humor to keep it from being a downer.
Ultimately, “Paul” isn’t Pegg and Frost’s best film to date, but Graeme and Clive’s close encounter is a humorous and heartfelt romp that is worth the time watching it.
