RBR: Paul

While some will recognize Simon Pegg and Nick Frost from cult films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, this film is likely the one that introduced them to a more mainstream audience thanks to the subject matter and supporting cast members along for the ride. The film is about two nerdy friends who encounter an actual alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) as they travel through the United States visiting famous alien landmarks. They're being chased by government agents, led by Jason Bateman and from there hijinx ensue. One aspect of the film's narrative is that Paul has been on Earth several years and has supposedly influenced some of pop culture's greatest alien stories (we're to believe he gave Spielberg the idea for E.T.). But this film does more than just name drop this other alien films, they often crib ideas from them as well. The end result is a mildly funny but wholly unoriginal film that does nobody any good. Fans of Pegg and Frost will likely find this to be a far inferior movie to their previous collaborations and those seeing these two for the first time will likely question why they are movie stars in the first place. I ended up seeing the 'unrated' version of this film and I found it to still be pretty tame given the work that I've seen everyone involved in this film do before. There are some fun cameos here from the likes of Bill Hader, Jane Lynch, Sigourney Weaver, Jeffrey Tambor, and even Blythe Danner, but none of the offer up much more than allowing the audience to say "Hey look, it's so-and-so". For sci-fi geeks, this has enough to make it worthy of a rental, but overall this is a disappointing effort from some talented individuals. Rating: ** 1/2