Trailer Tueday: Paul

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Continuing the recent Trailer Tuesday trend of profiling some of 2011's big alien-centric movie releases (and there are a helluva lot of them), today we're looking at sci-fi geek comedy Paul.

R-rated Paul stars - and is written by - Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz's Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (both of whom are prolific Twitter users out of interest). The film co-stars Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader and Sigourney Weaver, features the voice of Seth Rogen as the title character, and is directed by Superbad's Greg Mottola (instead of Pegg and Frost's frequent behind-the-camera collaborator, Edgar Wright).


Paul centres on 2 best friend British geeks (Pegg and Frost) who are fulfilling their lifelong dream of road-tripping across America to get to San Diego Comic-Con. Their journey takes them through "UFO country" and in Area 51 they encounter a real alien, Paul (voiced by Rogen) - who couldn't be more different from E.T. With Paul in their camper van, a woman (Wiig) they accidentally kidnap and government agents (Bateman and Hader) on their trail, the guys find themselves at the centre of a nationwide manhunt.

Now while the teaser trailer placed its emphasis more squarely on the film's action, the full trailer above is definitely focused more on comedy. And judging by it, well, I'm cautiously looking forward to Paul. The references to, and spoofs of, other classic alien movies are genuinely funny, but Seth Rogen's voice just doesn't sit quite right with the character. Especially since he seems to be very similar to Roger from animated series American Dad!, complete with the character's self-obsession, bad habits, love for pranks and lust for junk food. Plus they're both diminutive Roswell greys who don disguises to go out in public.

To enjoy this movie fully then, I'm afraid I'm going to have to overcome my deep desire that it was Roger up there on the big screen.

Paul releases in North America on 18 March. There has been no indication when the film will open in South Africa.


Comments

Jazz said…
This is going to be a really fun film.

Also, a bit of big casting news today for the dark knight rises...
9:14 PM
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