Nick turned me onto this movie. I had not even heard of it until we did the Big Spring Preview show. I must confess, at the time, it really didn't do much for me. For the record - Nick, you were right on this one !
"Paul" is the hilarious story of two British Sci-Fi/Comic nerds (Pegg & Frost) who are on their first holiday to America. The trip starts off with a visit to Comic-Con in San Diego and is then going to turn into a road trip via Winnebago through America's southwest to see all of the alien encounter tourist sites i.e. Area 51, Roswell, etc. Along the way they meet Paul, a foul-mouthed, pot smoking alien who has been imprisoned on Earth since his UFO crashed in 1947 and has recently escaped and is trying to get home.
What follows is a hilarious, part buddy film - part action romp as this unlikely trio race across the Big Sky states constantly being pursued by the Men In Black (?) played by Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, and Joe Lo Truglio and several other oddball locals they encounter along the way. Bateman convincingly plays the bad cop to Hader and Truglio who stumble along providing laugh after laugh in the good cop role.
This movie is fun from start to finish. Predictable, yes. Worth seeing, definitely. And I would be remiss without giving special kudos to Steven Spielberg. Apparently Mr. Spielberg has a helluva sense of humor or there is no way this movie could have happened, let alone have a cameo from Spielberg himself. Suffice to say, if you want to get all the jokes and punchlines - you might want to make sure you have seen the following Spielberg classics:
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
"ET: The Extra Terrestrial"
"Jaws" (yes, I said Jaws)
*** 3 out of 4 stars
John M. Dunlap
The Hollywood Outsiders
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