Product Description
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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 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 her of a young woman that
they accidentally kip, 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 Feature
* Theatrical Feature Commentary with Director Greg Mottola,
Producer Nira Park and Actors Nick Frost and Simon Pegg
* BTS Featurette (8 Featurettes)
* Between The Lightning Strikes: The Making Of Paul
* The Evolution of Paul
* Bloopers
* Who the hell is Adam Shadowchild?
* Simon Silly Faces and Galleries
.co.uk Review
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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 c-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 y 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
