Paul

We watched Paul this week. Evan, Shaun and I went to see it at the new theatre, complete with reclining seats. You have to be a bit taller than I am to take full advantage, though. I didn't notice it as much as in TRON, though.

I got two of the three trailers, but neither Evan nor I had seen Bridesmaids before, and we hope to never see it again. I got Arthur (not on our list) and Your Highness (definitely on our list, and coming up in a few weeks). Then the credits rolled, and only two companies were involved in the making - Working Title, and Universal. Of course, the giant companies barely count, because you can't really mistake them for a movie (thanks for the joke, Family Guy). We all know the globe from Universal, or the kingdom & castle from Disney, or the lady with the torch for Columbia (although I do miss the horse from Tri Star) or the floating triangles for Alliance (I'm not sure how many Americans would know that one, since I think Alliance is a Canadian company mostly involved with distribution here).

The movie itself starts about 60 years ago, with a dog going outside to investigate strange lights, followed by a young girl. A spaceship lands - on the dog. I laughed, but I'm sure PETA wasn't impressed. It was only implied, though, not shown.

The movie skips ahead to the present day, at Comic Con. This was both funny and informative, because I've read about Comic Con on a number of nerdy news sources. And some legitimate ones, as well. There are a few gags, one involving Simon Pegg's character (Graeme) eyeing one of the many ladies dressed up in Princess Leia's bikini from Return of the Jedi (there were a bunch of those bikinis wandering around) while Nick Frost's character (Clive) eyes the girl in the Ewok costume. Snigger. Then they meet an amalgamation of every author who's sick of meeting every fan whose life was changed by his works, played hilariously by Jeffrey Tambor. Anyway, we learn that Clive won the Nebula Award in 1992, which is actually pretty good. It's the award for best Sci-Fi novel. Past winners include Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, and Orson Scott Card, who won for Ender's Game, which everyone should read. Seriously, stop reading this good-for-nothing blog and pick it up. It's one of the better books ever written.

Anyway, after Comic Con they rent an RV for a road trip to all the alien landmarks in the USA (they’re from the UK). Some of them I recognized, some I did not. After a run-in with a couple of rednecks (and denting their truck), they wind up meeting the titular alien when the car he's acquired crashes. Clive faints, so Paul explains to Graeme that he's in trouble and on the run. It eventually comes out that the government has gotten enough information out of him, and now wants to dissect him, so he understandably goes on the lam.

A short while later, they hook up with Ruth (played by Kristen Wiig), who's a hardcore Young-Earth Christian Fundamentalist. Tired of her calling him a demon, Paul imparts knowledge of evolution and alien culture via mindmeld, and her faith is shattered. "I can drink." "Yeah." "I can smoke" "Yup." "I can swear." "Probably." "I can fornicate." "Maybe later." Afterwards follows her learning attempts to curse properly. She can find the right words, and find the right times, but not the right words at the right times. Until the end, when it's used for subtly for drama.

Anyway, her equally fundamentalist father thinks she's been kidnapped, so he's after her. Also on the trail are a senior Secret Service Agent (Agent Zoil, played by Jason Bateman) who knows about Paul, and two junior secret service agents who are pretty dumb, and are recruited by Zoil to find anything suspicious. They eventually cotton on that it's an alien, but only after hilarity has ensued.

Halfway through, they go to a tavern in the middle of nowhere, where the band is playing ... wait for it ... the Cantina music from Star Wars. You have not heard it until you've heard it on a slide guitar. A perfectly understandable brawl breaks out, involving everyone that's chasing them (and the two rednecks, and a random group of sailors). They get out of it alright (except for a bloody nose for Clive) and go on there way to Paul's destination. They also pick up the girl (now an old woman) whose dog Paul crushed when he arrived.

More chasing and humour ensue ("You're not going to ... probe us, will you?" "Why does everyone always go to that? What do they think we do, harvest farts? How much can you learn from ass anyway?") as well as some references to other science fiction. Everyone in the theatre got the Cantina music, but I'm not sure how many people got the five notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And they even managed to get a cameo of Sigourney Weaver in there, complete with Aliens reference: "Get away from her, you Bitch!"

All in all, it was much funnier than I expected. Or maybe more obviously funny. I think some of the humour in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz may not have been to American sensibilities (many of which I share). And of course, both of those movies split comedy with another style as well (Zombies and Action, respectively), so making a movie that concentrated on pure comedy may have distilled the funny. Or they got even better at writing, or they had a bunch more references to go with. Whatever it was, I thoroughly liked it. Theatre movie for sure.

As a PS, I’m pretty sure Paul (the character) was all computer generated. And fantastically done as well. People will always hold up Gollum as the epitome of CG characters, but I think Paul holds his own. Kudos to the effects department for a tremendous job on that.