Paul was completely lost on me. Although, I’m not sure what I was expecting. I’m one of a very, very small majority that didn’t think much of Hot Fuzz, or Shaun of the Dead, and I’d sooner put David Mitchell and Robert Webb up as British comedy royalty than Nick Frost or Simon Pegg. In fact, all I kept thinking through the ridiculously protracted 104-minute runtime is how lucky I was Kristen Wiig was making this watchable at all.  Not even Jane Lynch managed to do much here.

I admit, I haven’t seen the majority of the films Paul gave a nod to. In fact, besides Sigourney Weaver’s presence alluding to Alien, I’m pretty sure the only hommage I got were a few to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. which I recognize more as cultural references rather than to specific parts of the original films. I was clearly not the target audience. But the jokes I did catch seemed to be a bit tired. Get this, the two main characters, best friends and uber-geeks, keep getting mistaken as gay. Over and over! I never get tired of friendly pokes at fundamentalism, but come on, another movie with a shot of a loaded gun next to a Bible? Greg Mottola is a good director, and should have known better than these cheap jokes.  And most distracting of all, is Seth Rogan.   Rogan can be funny.  But he’s overexposed.  He has five movies coming out in 2011 alone, making that nearly twenty feature films since the beginning of 2008.  His voice is distracting, and never quite lets you forget that Paul is animated.

Altogether, I felt the film was lacking overall, and I can’t find myself willing to recommend Paul to anyone that’s not not an ardent fan of either sci-fi or the Pegg/Frost team.  It seems for most others, it will be underwhelming.

2 out of 4 stars

The spoiler-ific trailer gives most of the plot away.  Two BFFs (a respectably bromance), Wheeler (Sean William Scott) and Danny (Paul Rudd), are stuck in a dead end job pimping energy drink ‘Minotaur’ to high school-ers.  Wheeler is the happy-go-lucky funny guy that gets more tail than James Bond, and Danny is the cynical, anti-social, quasi-loner who really needs human affection.  They get into a little bit of trouble with the law and with a little assistance from Danny’s newly ex-ed lawyer girlfriend (the ubiquitous Elizabeth Banks), are only sentenced to 150 hours of community service with a Big Brother-like program called Sturdy Wings.  Sturdy Wings was founded by Gayle Sweeney (played by Jane Lynch who hits all the right notes), a former drug-addicted, alcoholic whore.  Danny and Wheeler are stuck with two of hardest, most maladjusted kids, Auggie and Ronnie (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb’e J. Thompson-no that’s not a typo).

David Wain is a triple threat, having large amounts of experience in acting, writing and directing in shows like Reno 911 and Mad TV.  His direction clearly made this movie the success that it is, but equally important are the pitch perfect performances by the two leads.  Rudd couldn’t have done any better in his role.  His comedic timing is almost perfect.  And despite Scott’s character being mostly a continuation of his Stiffler role in the American Pie movies, he’ll make you laugh.  A lot.  The movie only took a few unfortunate missteps.  For one, little kids swearing is funny, but not that funny, they certainly beat that dead horse to death (hearing 8 year-olds discuss oral sex is a stretch even for the most tastefully handled scenes).  And two, the perfect happy ending was a little forced.  Well, a lot forced.  Not that the climax didn’t make me laugh out loud, it just could have been more than it was.  Despite these complaints, I loved the movie.  It’s great if you can get past the potty and sex humor.  And I’d encourage you to try to.

3 out of 4 stars

Rottentomatoes: 75% – Cream of the Crop: 67%