When did cursing become so lackluster? Remember when it was hilarious to hear someone drop an f-bomb once in a while in a film? Recently in movies it seems so lazy to throw several f-bombs at the audience where it doesn't actually add to the story or even the punch line. When is David Mamet going to write a comedy? Now there's a guy that knows how to punctuate a sentence with a curse, dammit.
In a movie that challenges religious beliefs and is prone to quote several different Sci-Fi flicks it shouldn't let foul language take the focus. "Paul" is the title of and the central character in Greg Mottola's (director of "Superbad") new film about an alien that crash lands on earth in 1947. He is now trying to escape back to his home planet. Paul is a mix of E.T. and Alf. He is similar in texture to E.T. and he has a boisterous personality like Alf. Think of him like this - if E.T. crash landed at a frat party instead of Elliot's back yard he would have developed into Paul.
We begin our journey with Graeme Willy (played by Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (played by Nick Frost) two Sci-Fi geeks from England on holiday in the states. They begin their journey at their Mecca "Comic Con." This is a convention where Star Wars, Star Trek, D & D, LOTR, and Dr. Who geeks, nerds and dweebs (I am not being mean, it's the truth) meet every year to intermingle with one another and see what new geek fan fare awaits them for the coming year.
After the duo meets their science fiction idols, they rent an RV and start their road trip to all the famous UFO sites in the Southwest -Area 51, Roswell and the Black Mail Box (I had to Google that one).
They soon cross paths with Paul (a CGI character voiced by Seth Rogen) who is on the run from government agents. Graeme and Clive agree to abet Paul in his escape. On the way they pick up a RV rest stop attendant, Ruth (played by Kristen Wiig). This is where the jokes start fluctuating where before they were just falling flat. Ruth is a right wing conservative Christian who believes the earth is only 4,000 years old. If she owned a car, you could bet it would have a bumper sticker that reads "Read My Lipstick." Paul soon "converts" Ruth to think outside her strict Christian upbringing to believe in extraterrestrial life. While adopting her new life she feels that she needs to curse more to explore her newfound freedom. Her expletives would have been very effective if it hadn't been for everyone around her cursing their fool heads off too. There is a time and place for everything. I don't feel that a comedy movie about a fouled mouth, dope-smoking alien is the place to discuss Intelligent Design (Oh my god, I am starting to sound like my mother).
With a Secret Service agent (played by Jason Bateman) on their tail, the gang starts making their way north with Paul to find his mother ship (it's a movie about aliens, of course there is a mother ship). With plenty of action and a few more wisely placed one-liners from famous Sci-Fi flicks, the story finally climaxes in a way that you would expect from a comedy film about aliens.
Should you see this movie? Are you a geek, dweeb or nerd? Then yes, go see it. You will enjoy the "Star Wars", "Aliens", and "Star Trek" references. If you are a true fan, you will be rewarded for hording that geeky trivia since you were 12 years old. It was good to see Pegg and Frost back together again. However it wasn't the same clever writing as we came to expect from "Shaun of the Dead," a film that didn't need a lot of cursing to be funny, just a lot of blood and guts.
In a movie that challenges religious beliefs and is prone to quote several different Sci-Fi flicks it shouldn't let foul language take the focus. "Paul" is the title of and the central character in Greg Mottola's (director of "Superbad") new film about an alien that crash lands on earth in 1947. He is now trying to escape back to his home planet. Paul is a mix of E.T. and Alf. He is similar in texture to E.T. and he has a boisterous personality like Alf. Think of him like this - if E.T. crash landed at a frat party instead of Elliot's back yard he would have developed into Paul.
We begin our journey with Graeme Willy (played by Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (played by Nick Frost) two Sci-Fi geeks from England on holiday in the states. They begin their journey at their Mecca "Comic Con." This is a convention where Star Wars, Star Trek, D & D, LOTR, and Dr. Who geeks, nerds and dweebs (I am not being mean, it's the truth) meet every year to intermingle with one another and see what new geek fan fare awaits them for the coming year.
After the duo meets their science fiction idols, they rent an RV and start their road trip to all the famous UFO sites in the Southwest -Area 51, Roswell and the Black Mail Box (I had to Google that one).
They soon cross paths with Paul (a CGI character voiced by Seth Rogen) who is on the run from government agents. Graeme and Clive agree to abet Paul in his escape. On the way they pick up a RV rest stop attendant, Ruth (played by Kristen Wiig). This is where the jokes start fluctuating where before they were just falling flat. Ruth is a right wing conservative Christian who believes the earth is only 4,000 years old. If she owned a car, you could bet it would have a bumper sticker that reads "Read My Lipstick." Paul soon "converts" Ruth to think outside her strict Christian upbringing to believe in extraterrestrial life. While adopting her new life she feels that she needs to curse more to explore her newfound freedom. Her expletives would have been very effective if it hadn't been for everyone around her cursing their fool heads off too. There is a time and place for everything. I don't feel that a comedy movie about a fouled mouth, dope-smoking alien is the place to discuss Intelligent Design (Oh my god, I am starting to sound like my mother).
With a Secret Service agent (played by Jason Bateman) on their tail, the gang starts making their way north with Paul to find his mother ship (it's a movie about aliens, of course there is a mother ship). With plenty of action and a few more wisely placed one-liners from famous Sci-Fi flicks, the story finally climaxes in a way that you would expect from a comedy film about aliens.
Should you see this movie? Are you a geek, dweeb or nerd? Then yes, go see it. You will enjoy the "Star Wars", "Aliens", and "Star Trek" references. If you are a true fan, you will be rewarded for hording that geeky trivia since you were 12 years old. It was good to see Pegg and Frost back together again. However it wasn't the same clever writing as we came to expect from "Shaun of the Dead," a film that didn't need a lot of cursing to be funny, just a lot of blood and guts.