Reviews by Matt

I have no problem admitting I am a geek. Movie geek or Whedonite, I have no problem copping to either. There is nothing wrong with obsession when it is channeled the right way. Sometimes when I go to see a movie, I feel like I should love it. Some movies are right up my alley. So, by all accounts, I should have loved “Paul.” Simon Pegg and Nick
Frost love movies and it has been shown in “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz.” Yet, when I walked out of the theater, I was under whelmed. It was just so-so. A comedy that I should have loved, was just a mediocre movie at best.

Two friends, Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) decide to cross America and visit all the UFO hot spots. Just outside of Area 51 they run into an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogan). The government is perusing Paul after he broke out of his cell. Graeme and Clive decide to help Paul get off the planet and back home.

Let’s get the good stuff out of the way. Normally I hate Seth Rogan. In the past few years he has become way to overexposed. He was the best part of this movie. At first, I had a problem hearing his voice come out of the digital character, but he actually did a great job of it.

The animation on Paul was amazing. He looked real which is quite the feat considering the nature of the character. In other science fiction movies/TV shows, it is pretty obvious that the aliens are fakes, but Paul felt like he belonged in each and every scene.

So that was the good. Here is the bad. The humor was not that humorous. Much of it came from the fact that Paul was a crude, crass character. The novelty of a CGI character swearing, drinking beer and flicking people off wore off quickly. After that it was just cussing for cussing’s sake. I was over it, but it did not destroy the movie for me.

Some of the humor comes from likes that are from other movies. They are not funny because of the content, but more of “oh, that is from ‘Aliens.’” It does not make the movie funnier. It just makes it more inside for those who have seen movies like “Star Wars” and “Aliens.” Other references like Paul being responsible for writing the character of Fox Mulder from “The X-Files” or being the inspiration for all alien merchandise since he crashed in the 70s were nice, but added nothing to the movie.

I wanted to like this movie. I tried hard to like it as much as everyone else in the theater did, but I could not. It ends up being a decent comedy, but nothing I have not seen before.

6 out of 10
Rated R for language including sexual references, and some drug use.
104 min