Contents
Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in Paul
As for the titular PAUL, as voiced by Seth Rogen, this was the one aspect of the film I really thought I’d have a hard time getting past. I like Rogen, but he’s such a distinct comic personality that I was afraid he would overwhelm Pegg and Frost, or somehow not mess well with their somewhat more genteel humour. I shouldn’t have worried, as Rogen actually does a really good job as the pot-smoking, slacker alien (I know- BIG stretch), who, it turns out, has a heart of gold. I was also afraid the CGI might come off as cheesy, but to my eyes- PAUL looked pretty damn real, so no problems in that area…read more [Joblo] The picture gets down to business briskly with Pegg as Graeme and Frost as Clive, best mates from England on a dream trip to the United States that begins at San Diego’s Comic-Con ahead of a tour of the most famous UFO sites. Genial and naive, they eat up Comic-Con, where Jeffrey Tambor delivers a devastating portrayal of an aging comic creator, before they set off in a RV headed for the desert. Somewhere along the Extraterrestrial Highway, they run into Paul…read more [THR] The saying goes, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. This could be applied to the masterful cinematic combination of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost. These three individuals have oodles of talent on their own; but bring the three of them together, and they hit a whole new level of brilliance. Separate the trio, and while the work is still very good, it doesn’t quite reach the top. Scott Pilgrim is one example of this; and now Paul is another. Not a great film, but a very good one. Pegg and Frost play Graeme and Clive respectively, two British geeks who take a lifelong dream trip to Comic-Con in San Diego, followed by a road trip in an RV to famous UFO/alien sites of the southwest US. Late one night they encounter Paul ( the oddest named alien in film history), who needs them to help him get to Wyoming so he can get the hell out of Dodge. They are being followed by a government agent, two mildly inept cops, and manage to pickup an odd religious nut along the way…read more [TwichFilm] Paul is user-friendly, like an old slipper. But it’s also just as predictable and occasionally whiffy, its near-laziness exposed by some half-assed romantic non-intrigue, a throwaway “three tits” running gag and a bit of rote message-lobbing (a live-a-little homily of, “Sometimes, you’ve just gotta roll the dice.”). As the on-stage climax steers suspiciously close to self-congratulatory, you’re left with a film that leans lightly on our geek-loving goodwill but doesn’t work hard to earn it. It’s Pegg and Frost treading water when they could be taking risks, pushing the envelope. “Sometimes you’ve just got to roll the dice?” Let’s see it, then…read more [TotalFilm] Perhaps the best surprise in Paul is that, 10 years after starring together on BBC’s Spaced, Pegg and Frost have lost none of the easy energy that makes them so great as a pair. Though they’re a bit long in the tooth to play two nerds making a pilgrimage to Comic Con, they sell their characters Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) as guys thrilled both to meet their comic book idol (Jeffrey Tambor) and take a road trip across the American Southwest, a place apparently iconic even for British sci-fi geeks. What makes their trip spectacular, though, is a run-in with Paul, a little gray alien voiced by Seth Rogen who has escaped his imprisonment at Area 51 and enlists Graeme and Clive to drive him… well, he’s not telling them where just yet..read more [CimenaBlend] “Paul” isn’t particularly peppy so much as slight and laid-back, and it only loses more steam by the third act as Blythe Danner (2010’s “Little Fockers”) enters the frame as a woman from Paul’s past and Sigourney Weaver (2010’s “You Again”) finally shows her face for a wasted climactic walk-on. The ending is intended to be simultaneously heartwarming and imprudent, but not a sturdy enough bond has been formed between Paul and his earthling friends for it to have any impact. It doesn’t help that Paul just hasn’t been terribly amusing. Why should we miss him? All the ingredients seemed to be in place for “Paul” to work better than it does, but more often than not it just kind of sits there. It’s good-natured, but not half as sidesplitting or gratifying as it thinks it is…read more [Worstpreviews]Jason Bateman, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg in Paul
Paul wasn’t a bad movie at all. I didn’t see it in the theaters, and then totally forgot about it when it was released on DVD. I finally remembered about the movie when I was on the Cinemax page at DISH online and I saw the money was there to stream. So of course I let it play so I could finally watch the movie. I laughed a bit, only a couple big laughs, and that was about it. Not that I was disappointed in the movie, it was a good movie, but like you said it was missing an edge to it. A lot of the times that they tried to throw British and American Humor together it came out flat, other then a couple times that it clicked. I even told the movie nerd I work with at DISH that I watched the movie, he also was generally unimpressed with the movie, but he didn’t like the movie even as much as I did, something about the British humor he didn’t like.