Paul

Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) are two British 30-something sci-fi geeks finally living out their childhood dream of attending the San Diego Comic Con and embarking on a road trip across America. Of course, as make their way through the famous UFO hotspots of the American desert, the last thing they are expecting to do is to run into an actual alien calling himself Paul. Upon meeting the pot-smoking, foul-mouthed and worldly-wise extra-terrestrial their journey becomes a race to return Paul home before they are caught by a parade of secret agents, crazed Christians and angry hicks.

It is inevitable that any Pegg/Frost comedy is going to draw comparisons with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and in that regard, Paul is clearly not in the same league. That said, Paul is still a very entertaining and amusing romp, undeserving of the critical lambasting it has been receiving. The film has also fallen prey to misleading marketing - the trailers made it out to be a puerile stream of toilet jokes when in fact the humour is considerably more intelligent (albeit not ground-breaking either). One of my favourite moments involves a young Creationist woman being converted to Atheism after meeting Paul - although you do get the feeling that Pegg and Frost had to tone this part of the screenplay down to appease the American studio executives.

Overall, Paul is nothing remarkable but still offers plenty of fun, especially if you're a bit of a sci-fi geek yourself.

VERDICT: It's fun - give it a go.

IMDb