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 story follows two BFFs, Zack (played by garbly voiced Seth Rogan) and Miri (played by the wicked hot Elizabeth Banks).  The two can’t seem to make ends meet, and find their bills piling up so far, it’s hopeless to try and pay them back on their meager salaries.  They devise a plan to make a porno called Star Whores. Their plan is thwarted when their costumes and equipment (purchased with the last of their money) are destroyed in a building demolition.  It’s then they decide to make Swallow My Cockachino, conveniently set at the coffee shop where Zack works.  The rest of the movie is a mix between a romantic comedy and all the half-naked sex scenes they could fit in.

Perhaps the movie would have been more hilarious if their situation wasn’t so sad.  This is emphasized when the two go back to their high school reunion and it’s made clear, they’re the saddest, least successful of their graduating class.  This scene does provide a hilarious interaction between Superman‘s Brandon Routh and Accepted‘s Justin Long, who carry on a flaming, homosexual affair, despite being married.  There isn’t much redeeming about Zack and Miri, and the prospect that they finally find their true love for each other while doing it (literally, while they’re doing it) for a low budget porno in the kitchen of a coffee house, really just isn’t that great.  The emotional climax of the film happens while Zack is shouting through a bathroom door, while Miri is seated on a toilet, going number 2. This, to me, isn’t funny.  Seth Rogan should stick with Judd Apatow.  Zack and Miri is good for a few cheap laughs, but more often than not, illicits a smile, and not a laugh-out-loud chuckle.

1 out of 4 stars

Rottentomatoes: 65% – Cream of the Crop: 48%