Rating of
2/4
Ugh, I Wanted It to be Good
mitchellyoung - wrote on 12/17/11
I really wanted to like this movie and I did enjoy parts of it, but, frankly, it isn't very good. The film's main downfall, in fact, is it's title character, portrayed by Seth Rogen as a vulgar, weed-smoking, often rude extraterrestrial. The thing is, making Rogen's Paul a type of every other character Rogen has played recently makes "Paul" "just another Seth Rogen movie," rather than the geek-fueled homage to sci-fi films it desperately wants to be. The film's best moments come from references to wonder-filled films such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T." and Simon Pegg & Nick Frost do an admirable job of capturing the sort of childlike glee two comic book nerds might display upon meeting an actual alien. The R-rated humor feels forced in this film and actually distracts from the film's heart.
