Product Description Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) reunite for the comedy adventure Paul as two sci-fi geeks whose pilgrimage takes them to America’s UFO heartland. While there, they accidentally meet an alien who brings them on an insane road trip that alters their universe forever. For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) has been hanging out at a top-secret military base. For reasons unknown, the space-traveling smart ass decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town—a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Collings (Frost). Chased by federal agents and the fanatical father of a young woman that they accidentally kidnap, Graeme and Clive hatch a fumbling escape plan to return Paul to his mother ship. And as two nerds struggle to help, one little green man might just take his fellow outcasts from misfits to intergalactic heroes. Paul is directed by Superbad’s Greg Mottola, from a story by Pegg & Frost. Joining the comedy’s cast are Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, Joe Lo Truglio, John Carroll Lynch, David Koechner and Sigourney Weaver. Special Features: Extended FeatureTheatrical Feature Commentary with Director Greg Mottola, Producer Nira Park and Actors Nick Frost and Simon PeggBTS Featurette (8 Featurettes)Between The Lightning Strikes: The Making Of PaulThe Evolution of PaulBloopersWho the hell is Adam Shadowchild?Simon Silly Faces and Galleries .co.uk Review Everything you know about aliens from pop culture is true. At least that's the message from Paul, a swift, sharp, and very funny movie from the creative minds that also brought us Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Superbad, and Adventureland. The British stars of the first two, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, also wrote the snappy screenplay, and director Greg Mottola shows that he can make human and sentimental both the slapstick and the subtle, self-referential humour the same way he did in Superbad and Adventureland. The premise Pegg and Frost have laid out for themselves as likable, sci-fi fanatic supernerds is a dream vacation starting at Comic Con, then continuing through the American Southwest in an RV visiting historic UFO sites like Area 51, the Black Mailbox, and Roswell, and finishing up at Devil's Tower in Wyoming, the iconic centerpiece from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After their inauspicious start, they happen upon an escaped alien who is 4 feet tall, and has the big head, classic diamond eyes, and features we've come to recognize as both the benevolent and evil kinds of space aliens from movies and TV. He is also the titular character, and as voiced by Seth Rogen, this CGI creature spouts a never-ending string of wisecracks, insider secrets, and frat-boy humour that comes loud and clear as classic Rogen in tone and attitude. As an aside and terrific example of the very clever throwaway punch lines that run throughout, there's a brief flashback to 1980 showing Paul on a conference call with Steven Spielberg (really), giving him advice about script development issues for E.T.Paul crash-landed in the late 1940s and has been held prisoner by the government's men in black. They've not only been pumping him for knowledge, they've also leaked the fabric and features of his being to people who want to believe, especially the ones in Hollywood. Now Paul wants to go home, and he's found the perfect getaway with the want-to-believe team of Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost), who take him to his rendezvous (at Devil's Tower, of course). The road movie that unfolds is consistently hilarious, moving nimbly through one-off gags and inside jokes, but also creating larger relationships and drawn-out humour that relies on us believing that the little CGI Paul is real. And mostly we do, again thanks to Rogen's delivery and distinctive vocalizing. Paul constantly quips, makes fun, gets drunk, smokes dope, and spouts a steady stream of patter about how aliens have been bowdlerized and reimagined in entertainment and the minds of people like Graeme and Clive. There's a jam-packed supporting cast that complements and complicates the story (in a good way), including Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio as the bumbling men in black, and Jason Bateman as the scary man in black. Also passing through are some fun familiar faces like Jane Lynch, David Koechner, Jeffrey Tambor, John Carroll Lynch, and an iconic sci-fi actress who shall remain unnamed. Especially good is Kristen Wiig as a fundamentalist Christian whose mind is literally blown by Paul. Amid the broad humour and nonstop punch lines there's also a sweetness that stays with each finely drawn character (including Paul) and gives Paul an amiable sentimentality that runs throughout. Everyone clearly had fun making this movie, and that's exactly how it is to watch. --Ted Fry
T**T
Very watchable
Not up with the best hifi films
P**N
A great comedy
This film is very funny taking the micky out of a few Sci-Fi genres
J**M
Paul
Paul sees two comic book geeks (Simon Pegg & Nick Frost) take a road trip to Area 51, where they run into alien called Paul (Seth Rogen). With federal agents (Jason Bateman, Bill Hader & Joe Lo Truglio) in pursuit they must find a way to return Paul to his spaceship.Despite lacking the creativity of Edgar Wright’s direction and the wit of his writing, Paul is still an entertaining road trip with Pegg & Frost’s usual great double lead chemistry, plus Rogen’s foul mouthed stoner alien and their writing balancing immaturity, sci-fi and friendship very well, whilst also being backed up by a brilliant supporting cast.The story takes the very familiar road trip comedy formula and adds a layer of sci-fi, comic book and geek culture that harks back to their Spaced roots as well as incorporating a more ‘American’ approach to the comedy, that admittedly does lack the cult and clever appeal of their work with Wright but also makes for several genuinely hilarious moments throughout and many memorable lines and callbacks.There is some surprisingly well choreographed and fast paced chase sequences that constantly keep the pace up of the film and are interspersed with more chilled out and character focused moments. From a direction and visual perspective the film is fairly basic but it gets the job done. The CGI and movements of Paul is done extremely well and looks very realistic at times even nearly 10 years later.As mentioned earlier Pegg & Frost are still great here as the lead duo, with Graham and Clive being a likeable pair. Seth Rogen brings his stoner persona and rude slapstick and toilet humour to Paul with great effect. Jason Bateman’s dry sarcastic tone and deadly serious persona as Agent Zoil works well and his bumbling colleagues played by Bill Hader & Joe Lo Truglio are a riot. Kristen Wiig is cooky and enthusiastic as very religious Ruth who gets dragged along on the trip and Sigourney Weaver gives a seething scenery chewing performance as The Big Guy.Paul is an underrated and entertaining early 10’s comedy with an excellent cast, fast paced and engaging road trip premise and some genuinely funny moments. It is very familiar at times and the character arcs and jokes are predictable at times, however that doesn’t stop it being a tonne of fun.
N**E
Will never have enough of it
Love it
J**D
Funny film even kids like it
Loved watching this film
S**N
Funny film
Funny but naughty film, good quality DVD
A**R
this would have been a masterpiece if Edgar Wright directed
The syrupy geek sentiment that forms the lifeblood of Paul carries a charm that's nearly impossible to resist. And even if this loving homage to all things sci-fi never quite hits the sturdy comedic stride of, Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz (the two films audiences are most likely to compare it to) movie lovers will still have a field day wading through the nonstop film references and fans of in jokes and Easter eggs will find plenty to chuckle about.From Spaced onward, long-time collaborators (and renowned off-screen pals) Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have constructed nearly their entire careers on the foundation of clever film references and being nerdy about it. But it seems the longer the self-professed fan boys stick to their routine formula of paying homage, the less effective it becomes. Perhaps in this film it's due to the notable absence of long-time collaborator Edgar Wright? This road trip comedy does lack the creative flair that Wright brought in Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz.Still, saying that Paul is the least inspired work from the people who gave us some of the previous decade's best comedies isn't to say that it's an outright failure, just that it's pretty much on par with your average Hollywood comedy, only with a nerdy slant.It is hard not to love a film that's so unabashed in its love for all things nerd.And despite the fact that the gimmick of a foul-mouthed, pot-smoking Grey Alien with the personality of Seth Rogen could wear thin rather quickly, the character of Paul is animated in a way that still makes him endearing.Thankfully Paul brings geek humour to the masses relatively well; however, if Pegg and Frost are truly going to have any staying power on the big screen, I think future projects are best done under the creative eye of Edgar Wright.
G**C
UFO Road Trip
Pegg/Frost's latest comedy collaboration is a space-alien/conspiracy genre road movie. Frost is a sci-fi writer and Pegg his artist who following a comic convention in the USA head along the UFO tourist trail in a hired Winnebago, taking in the famous sights from UFO and conspiracy lore. When following a mysterious car crash in the dead of night they come across a grey alien on the run from the ubiquitous "men in black", the film follows how two comic-book/UFO geeks would react if they actually did run into the true source of their fantasies.The alien, Paul, has learned English at the hands of the US authorities and as a result has turned out vulgar and foul-mouthed. After he joins them, Pegg and Frost's much more innocent characters "accidentally rescue" a Born Again Christian from her oppressive father while trying to keep Paul's presence a secret, which leads to a couple of scenes that the overly religious may find either insulting or funny, depending upon their level of fundamentalism.The Pegg/Frost collaborations often take a genre which has an existing cult fan base (e.g. Hot Fuzz the Dennis Wheatley film / Rosemary's Baby-style satanic conspiracy spoof, Shaun Of The Dead the spoof on cult zombie movies) and loads them with a range of genre references, much like their TV show Spaced [1999 ]. Men In Black 1997) was another comedy in this genre to load-up with references, appealing to both the hard-line geek and the casual viewer in different ways.I personally enjoyed it very much and found it very funny, and like most of the duo's films it displays their ability to carry the similarities of Pegg and Frost's characters and relationship over into what often turn out to be very dissimilar films.
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4 days ago
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