Paul (Directed By Greg Mottolo 2011)

A film that should win an award simply for doing exactly what you think it's going to do, Paul is juvenile fun of the highest order and is quite simply a breath of fresh comedic air and one that has already set the standard for the genre pretty high for 2011. After the lacklustre but stylishly executed Hot Fuzz, both Simon Pegg and Nick Frost drifted off into rather boring and uncharacteristically straight film roles but here, accompanied by Superbad Director Greg Mottolo,the guys return very much to form. And it couldn't be a more welcome return. Paul sees the ever watchable duo goofing around as if their late 90's slacker hit TV show Spaced only finished yesterday.
The simple premise finds the very British Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Frost) travelling across America to attend a Comicon convention and stumbling rather fittingly upon Paul (the Alien of the films title voiced by and clearly based on the personality of Seth Rogen). For the past sixty years, Paul has been hiding out at a top secret military base and upon discovering that he's actually been taken prisoner for all this time, he decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town in an attempt to return to his home planet. From here on, a rather slapstick FBI trio consisting of Saturday Night Live stars Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio and the ever watchable Jason Bateman set about finding Paul and returning him, whilst under strict command from their headquarters. However, with little persuasion, Graeme and Clive set about trying to return Paul to his mothership before he is discovered. The chemistry between these three is priceless and somehow, amidst coming to terms with the fact the two geeks have an actual real life alien on board their Winnebago they accidently kidnap Ruth (Played fantastically as usual by Kristen Wiig) from her demanding Christian father which sees them get themselves caught up in even more trouble as they race against the federal bigwigs in one hilariously silly road trip.
Jam packed with references to Star Wars (obviously) Alien(Sigouney Weaver plays the hard as nails FBI boss) and numerous other geeky Sci-Fi pleasures such as E.T and Close Encounters, Paul is very hard to not just sit back and enjoy. It's put together with such love and an obvious sense of admiration between the cast and crew members that it almost instantly fells like a bit of a genre classic. Referential and fun films like this can easily miss the mark but when they get it right they can feel timeless. No thanks to Peggs wardrobe and T shirt choices throughout and Mottolo slipping in all the obvious gags from the safely tried and tested road trip film. Numerous fantastic cameos, the odd drug related humour, plenty of harmless but excessive explosions and the expected love story sideline. Luckily this element doesn't weigh the film down at all and instead provides Wiig with some hysterical one liners as she quickly ditches her religious upbringing and starts picking up and misusing a vast array of swear words. Also, and very much a highlight is the brief but very funny chemistry between Wiig and Jane Lynch. These two really should consider doing more films together as their dry and almost sarcastic personalities compliment each other fantastically.
In fact,everyone in this film (and that definitely including Paul himself) plays their parts so naturally and down to earth it's easy to forget this is a big budget Hollywood film. It avoids being too over blown whilst maintaining its integrity and as per usual Frost and Pegg have no trouble playing pretty much themselves. These are the roles they were meant to play. Just wait for the intentionally over dramatic and drawn out climax which boasts a well timed and nicely added touch thanks to Frost's deadpan enthusiasm.

Here's hoping Paul does as well as it deserves. It certainly doesn't need a sequel, prequel or anything else. It's a fun and entertaining hour an a half that should impress anyone who enjoys this sort of thing. Besides, this is hardly high brow entertainment and after seeing the poster, noone is likely to go into this expecting anything too serious and demanding.