So before I head out to go see Paul, I will tell you why I am going to go see it.
Before:
I trust Simon Pegg and Nick Frost combo, as the duo tackles one genre to the next. Regardless of anything I have heard or seen over the top confusing trailers, I want to go spend my movie money on these people. I thought Superbad and Adventureland were tight and full of story, I have a soft spot for Seth Rogan in the same way, I want these fat ugly losers to succeed.
Worries include, Sigourney Weaver—Pretty much any movie after Galaxy Quest, is bad. Galaxy Quest was a good Sigourney Weaver role. She has not played a good role since.
Overdoing it—I hope they don’t over do it with cameos and nonsense, do I already know William Shatner is in the movie or is that just a guess? Anyhow, it has potential to over do it depending on how well it can handle the long list of funny improvisational actors.
I have just seen the film.
After:
Well the movie was pretty good. I like Paul the cigarette-smoking alien. And the film had a tight script, good performances, good acting. The funny people were contained to there quirky or dorky or weird roles. And with all it’s funny moments, it holds the integrity of being more sci-fi than comedy. The pacing moves through the jokes fast, unlike a Seth Rogan film we do not linger on each moment. The jokes are even dryer without any slapstick. Unlike Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz the big pun or satirical punch line is held back to make a more subdued subtle satire, hardly a satire at all, with a lot of references and homage’s to past sci-fi films and comics. I suppose the punch line comes in Paul, who looks, well he is pretty cool to look at, the classic alien come to life. And just putting the alien with these two makes an absurd pun. Sigourney Weaver held here ground, I was happy with her role. This was Sigourney’s best role since Galaxy Quest. And, it is true, Paul and his friends burned one down, aliens do smoke weed.
Overall a really good film! Paul is worth seeing over any other new film coming out this weekend. It is missing the mark just a bit--in being a bit more subdued we get more of a really nice story than a really great film. A lot of the film is focused on playing out the archetypical alien story theme, the ET sort of famalien drama. Drahma played out in the usual Frost/Pegg best friend issues way which although is handled nicely enough to frame the sci-fi film it is nothing new. All this is probably holding the film back a bit from being more off the wall entertaining. I was asking myself why it was rated R, I would guess mostly due to a lot of wonderfully placed f words and our cigarette-smoking alien. Worth seeing.