Paul

Oh, Paul. What a disappointment you were. You had so much going for you. Greg Mottola, the director of Superbad. A script and performances by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. A great supporting cast. A really good premise. What went wrong?

I'm sure we've all seen the trailers, so we know what it's about. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are two geeks on a cross country trip to all the UFO hot spots, where they pick up a friendly fugitive alien. They then help him hide from the government agents and signal his people.

The first ten or fifteen minutes are a lot of fun. Pegg and Frost are one of the best comedy duos out there, and their natural chemistry is evident. They're playing different characters from their other movies, which is pretty cool. They're probably playing pretty close to themselves.

The main problem with the movie is Paul himself. He's voiced by Seth Rogen, who is playing him as Seth Rogen. I like Seth Rogen a lot, but my problem is, once Paul comes into the picture, he takes over the movie. He robs Pegg and Frost of the spotlight, and they're the characters you really want to watch.

The rest of the supporting cast is varying from fine to kind of wasted. I like Kristen Wiig as Simon Pegg's love interest. Jason Bateman and Bill Hader don't have a great deal to do. Joe Lotruglio is in it a lot more than he's ever been in anything before (besides Wet Hot American Summer, come to thing of it), but he's not as funny as I usually find him. I'm glad he's being used, though.

There were things I did like about Paul. I liked the John Williams-esque score. Most comedies are loaded with soundtrack music, so that was really cool to hear. It was generally well made, the character animation on the alien is top notch.

There are some funny homages to Star Wars, E.T., Close Encounters, Alien, and other classic science fiction films, but they do lean kind of heavily on them. They're not as woven into the story as Pegg and Frost's films with Edgar Wright are.

Paul is one of those movies that falls just shy of being good. If only Paul didn't get in the way of things, I would have liked it a whole lot more. C-