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Paul the alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) and Graeme (Simon Pegg) perform the cliched “tandem scream” in the disappointing sci-fi comedy “Paul.” |
The planet Earth has so many science-fiction geeks and alien conspiracy buffs that if “Paul” reaches just 5 percent of them, the comedy should hit cosmic box office receipts in record time.
I only wish that this latest collaboration between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost — who, along with director Edgar Wright, created the smartly hilarious comedies “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” — deserved to become a hit.
“Superbad” director Greg Mottola takes over for Wright in “Paul,” a film that clearly intends to deliver one big, raunchy wet kiss to the greatest sci-fi movies of the last four decades, but only succeeds in plundering them for cheap and cheesy comical references.
In fact, so many referential jokes in “Paul” have been ripped off from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” that Steven Spielberg might have a case for theft of intellectual property. (Spielberg’s voice makes a cameo in “Paul,” so that lawsuit thing is probably not going to happen.)
Seth Rogen, who in January tainted the superhero genre by turning “The Green Hornet” into slacker silliness, now points his laser of lameness at alien invasion films.
He supplies the stoner voice to the computer-animated Paul, the titular alien who chain-smokes intergalactic dope, swears like a Martin Scorsese mobster and, when he’s not greenish-blue-mooning humans, turns invisible by holding his alien breath. (Read more…)