You don’t have to be a science-fiction nerd to enjoy the alien road-trip comedy Paul. But it helps. A lot.
Take, for example, the caption that begins the film: “Moorcroft, Wyoming, 1947.” The year is a giveaway for anyone who’s ever heard of Roswell, New Mexico. But what about Moorcroft? Fanboys like me will recognize that location from a similar caption in Steven Spielberg’s UFO classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In fact, Spielberg himself contributes a voice cameo later on, in a clever scene that simultaneously references two more of his early hit movies.
After the familiar-looking introductory scene, we leap forward to the present day and the mecca of sci-fi geek worship: the annual Comic-Con convention in San Diego. This year’s festivities have drawn two long-distance travelers, British best friends and collaborators Clive (Nick Frost) and Graeme (Simon Pegg). They are enjoying the vacation they’ve always dreamed about–coming to America, geeking out with the herds of nerds at Comic-Con, meeting their favorite author Adam Shadowchild (Jeffrey Tambor, deftly skewering celebrity sci-fi writers with only a few lines), and then renting an RV to make a pilgrimage across the southwestern United States, intending to see Roswell, Area 51 in Nevada, and other points of supposed alien activity in between.
They find some alien activity all right, when they have a close encounter with a car accident in the Nevada desert and meet the crashed vehicle’s sole occupant–a three-foot-tall alien with a big head, big eyes, and a big, foul mouth. He calls himself Paul (with the voice of Seth Rogen), and he’s been a “guest” of the U.S. government since, yup, 1947. He’s told the feds everything he knows, and now he fears they’ll dissect him to try and learn how he can turn himself invisible and transfer thoughts to others through his touch. So Paul’s making a break for it, trying like his inspirational offspring E.T. to get back home.
Paul hitches a ride in the RV with the curious Graeme and the fearful Clive, and soon the two intrepid Brits are completely off their itinerary map, having their own close encounters with a tourist-trap waitress (Jane Lynch, who is always a delight to watch in anything), two smirking redneck idiots (David Koechner and Jesse Plemons), and a one-eyed Christian trailer park manager (Kristen Wiig) and her Bible-thumping father (John Carroll Lynch). In hot pursuit of Paul and his new companions are two goofy but determined detectives (Bill Hader from SNL and Joe Lo Truglio from Reno 911!) and a relentless federal agent (Jason Bateman) taking orders from “The Big Guy,” who is heard but not seen until the end as though the character’s identity is a big mystery–however, if you don’t recognize the voice of Sigourney Weaver, you’re obviously not enough of a movie geek to be the target audience for this film.
Because this movie definitely has a target audience, and it is NOT the younger generation. Graeme, Clive, and Paul’s journey is liberally garnished with references to the “old school” classics from the late 1970s to the 1980s; a gag about The X-Files was perhaps the most contemporary cultural tag, but there may be others I didn’t catch.
Pegg and Frost, co-writers as well as co-stars, don’t confine themselves to such obvious references as Graeme’s The Empire Strikes Back t-shirt or Paul’s demand for Reese’s Pieces. For example, when this band of travelers stops at a roadside honky-tonk, you’ll have an extra laugh if you recognize the melody the bluegrass band is playing in the background. Or if you recognize Bateman’s line after he shoots a radio. There’s even a brief homage to another classic film about traveling through the American West, Easy Rider. The film becomes less like a road trip adventure and more like a nostalgia trip for somewhat older folks like me who remember seeing the Star Wars movies and Spielberg classics on the big screen 25 to 35 years ago.
Pegg (Scotty in the recent Star Trek remake) and Frost are two funny and likable chaps, real-life friends and collaborators whose previous projects include the hilarious zombie spoof Shaun Of The Dead. Their screenplay for Paul is admirable, because they obviously have great affection not only for sci-fi fandom, but also for America. It’s nice to see a movie where the British characters are not snobs who denigrate and make derogatory remarks about the United States. These guys, despite their misadventures, are having the time of their lives traveling across the beautiful American Western landscapes, even with an alien on board.
Their script has its awkward moments, with a few too many scenes that may raise a smile but not much laughter. A few slapstick gags are overused. Thankfully, the filmmakers realized they were targeting an older demographic and went with an R rating, primarily for a lot of floridly obscene dialogue, much of it from the mouth of Kristen Wiig, who seems to be making up for dealing with NBC’s censors every week. There’s so much naughty language that it almost feels juvenile, but if they’d watered it down for a lesser rating, it wouldn’t have been nearly as funny.
Everyone in the cast seems to have a good time, and that positive energy infuses the film even in its weak moments. Bonus points for the casting of Blythe Danner (I remember her in Futureworld), who still looks pretty, has a nice dramatic moment, and then gets two of the funniest lines in the film. And Seth Rogen gives his best performance yet, particularly since we don’t have to look at his dopey mug, yet we enjoy his expressions via motion capture.
So don’t worry, nostalgia fans, Paul is not dead. He’s just on the road somewhere, phoning home.
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