Home > Film > Movie news > Paul DVD review
© 2009 Tuppence Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
Tuppence Magazine UK is an entertainment, news & reviews website that delivers my take and your take on stuff about music news, film release dates & trailers, television, books, computer games, food & drink, politics, theatre, comedy, art and fashion. Send in your reviews.
Paul DVD review
It's not a complex storyline, although there are a couple of surprises. Two sci-fi fans, Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost - Attack the Block), go to the Comic-Con convention in San Diago. After the event they drive off in their massive RV to start an aliens encounter epic journey taking in Extraterrestrial Road, the Black Mailbox, Area 51 and Roswell New Mexico. However, on the way they run into an alien called Paul, played by Seth Rogan (The Green Hornet) and have to put all their plans on hold to help him get back home.
Jason Bateman is one of the best additions to the cast as the brilliantly named, hard-as government operative, Lorenzo Zoil. His introduction is one of the funniest moments of the film and his interaction with fellow government agents, O'Reilly (Joe Truglio) and Haggard (Bill Hader), work well. Christen Wigg (Adventureland) plays the highly religious, Ruth Buggs, who joins the journey when she discovers Paul in the RV and her swearing scenes are class.
One of the best parts of the film is the array of references in it. Theme tunes, old sci-fi movie lines and scenes as well as the implication that Paul came up with E.T. and Fox Mulder makes for good viewing, but I'll leave you to pick them all out.
Overall Paul is an OK watch, but the reason I think that it falls short of being immense is that it was just a bit restrained, trying to cater for too many different audiences, so it comes out as being a bit watered down. There are a couple of moments where things break loose though, like in the end scene where Christen Wigg and Jane Lynch, who plays the waitress in the Little A'Le'Inn, have a random conversion of mutual appreciation, but for the most part the comic dialogue is fairly contained.
The Paul Probed 2 disc DVD edition contains a 6 minutes more extended version of the film, commentary with Director Greg Mottola of Superbad fame, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, a raft of outtakes, the making of Paul, Simon Pegg silly faces and the evolution of Paul, so there are a lot of extras thrown in for good measure, which makes the DVD a much better prospect.
Paul DVD review: 3.4/5
---------------------------
---------------------------
---------------------------
---------------------------
