What happens when two massive sci-fi geeks write a film about two massive sci-fi geeks that's aimed squarely at massive sci-fi geeks and is packed to the sprockets with massive sci-fi geekery? In the case of
Paul, the answer is a big bag of nerdy funballs which scores higher on the ROFLometer than any other comedy from the last few years. Especially if you're a massive sci-fi geek.
In all honesty, the thought of another comedy from the director of
Superbad and
Adventureland, both of which failed to withdraw anything other than boredom from my emotion bank, combined with the prospect of Seth Rogen freewheeling his way through another tediously unfunny performance (cf.
The Green Hornet) filled me with overwhelming ambivalence. But the fact that it's written by and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the two most-difficult-not-to-like people in British film, plus the casting of god amongst men Jason Bateman, was enough to make me semi-aroused.
Pegg and Frost's script - essentially a guffaw-laden love letter to
Star Wars,
E.T.,
Close Encounters,
Aliens and a million other life-shaping movies - squeezes in so many references to the films they adore that it's occasionally in danger of disappearing up its own thermal exhaust port. Thankfully there are more than enough LOLs and action to back up the nerding, and by the time the perfectly-located climax comes around you're prepared to forgive the odd shoe-horning in of yet another
Star Wars gag.
Unavoidably a few jokes fall flat - why obscure 1992 melodrama
Lorenzo's Oil is targeted for a major pun rather than another geek touchstone is a mystery - and Greg Mottola's direction fails him in a couple of crucial but annoyingly bodged scenes towards the end, but these are easy to forgive when the rest of the film is more fun than an unsolicited anal probing.
Obligatory gush over David Arnold score: It's fantastic.
