Paul Reviews

i was surprised by this movie; which i don't say often enough about movies. its not a perfect movie by any means, but it does what it needs to do...entertains.

paul is about an alien who crashed landed on earth, was captured, and years later he's escaped and has a chance to make it home. graeme and clive are two sort've stereotypical comic book nerds from england that have come to america for comicon and afterwards embark on a road trip to see a couple "ufo" related sights. they have a number of run-ins with locals throughout the movie. an early run-in leads to them being chased, however it turns out the vehicle chasing them was not who they thought and instead, after it crashes, they meet paul and become accomplices to his escape.

and lets be honest, none of that sounds the least be probable towards being a good movie. the headline above the title on the box says "from the makers of superbad"....thats a good thing? so my expectations were a overly crude, pointlessly absurd piece of comedy trash with little shelf life. and thats were i was totally wrong. sure theres a crude element but its no were near "overly", sure its pointless but pointless in the way any road trip movie by it nature is. as far as being an absurd piece of comedy trash: its not. it has comedy, but surprisingly not as much as you'd expect. in fact its somewhat understated. then it delves much deeper into more emotional aspects like the relationship of the two guys. its just surprising. nothing is really heavy about it just unusually honest, or matter of fact, in some ways.

as note: i did watch the "unrated" version rather than the theatrical so all comments relate to that.

also interesting: on the dvd is some 'bloopers' which are fair and some 'making of'. the making of i watched after the movie. and as they were talking about the creation of paul in CG, it occurred to me that i had not really thought much about it during the film. thats a testament to a job well done. paul is an unusually emotive character and combined with the live acting its surprising that theres nothing especially wow-ing or over the top graphic that makes you care at all about how it was done. he simply is as an actor in the movie. now there are certain things like his disappearing/invisible tricks that are obviously CG and there are some things about the eyes and the mouth that give it away, again though that is in retrospect, not while enjoying the movie. in part its because they didn't try to convince you, didn't try to fake you out, and in part because the effects are faking you out to a degree and are convincing. all i can say is i find it quite respectable.

as a movie its good, not great. but it grew on me and i didn't expect it. i was surprised by the movie itself and the story. for that i give this movie high ratings.

(9/10)