Robbing Michael to Play Paul
About ten minutes into the movie Paul, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost meet a Hispanic bellboy who proves to be one of the few people in the entire picture who knows nothing about ufos. By some odd coincidence, he always happens to be the film's only Hispanic character as well -- though to be fair, I was kinda surprised to see Pegg and Frost include such a character in the first place, given the fact that they do not exactly hail from a country with a large Hispanic population. Anyway, the scene with the bellboy struck me as puzzling because on one hand, Pegg and Frost were savvy enough to avoid the inevitable joke about illegal aliens. On the other hand, the scene seemed to come mighty close to including such a joke and indeed, the scene ends on such an awkward note that I could not help wondering why Pegg and Frost included it.
If that was the film's only flaw, I could have happily ignored it. After all, I have always liked Simon Pegg and it does not hurt that Frost and he both starred in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, two of my favorite films of the last decade.
Yet this latest film they made together just did not work for me. Perhaps it was because the humorous side of aliens have been explored in the movies far more than Frost and Pegg's previous subject matter. Or perhaps it was because Pegg and Frost really did not have a lot to say about this subject that was all that imaginative. Occasionally, they came up with a nice sight gag and some witty dialogue but all too often they depended on the same rude humor that almost every other recent movie comedy has used.
Moreover, the main gimmick of their movie seemed to echo the gimmick of the atrocious Nora Ephron movie Michael: a traditionally asexual being comes down to earth and starts acting contrary to asexual tradition. The main difference, of course, being that instead of the being being an angel as in Michael, the being in this case is an extraterrestrial. Occasionally, Frost and Pegg tried to add a bit of social commentary by making the alien visitor -- an extraterrestrial nicknamed Paul -- an enlightened being who mentally and emotionally liberates almost everyone he comes in contact with -- a subplot the audience is undoubtedly supposed to find funny since the alien's chief form of liberation seems to involve encouraging people to cuss a lot, have sex and partake of illicit drugs. In short, Paul encourages the humans to do the kind of things they normally would have wanted to do anyway.
Even that would not have been so bad if so much of the movie's humor did not seem directed at a more sophomoric audience than the people who watched Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Thus, in place of the witty dialogue we have come to expect from Pegg and Frost, we get endless shots of Paul mooning the humans and doing various other off-color stunts. Plus we get the umpteenth ripoff of X-Files and Men in Black in the form of a subplot involving mysterious agents -- feds, natch -- who are attempting to stop Paul and his human companions when they are not acting as childish as the movie's intended audience.
Nevertheless, Paul has enough laughes that I can readily see why many people might enjoy it. I just wish I could honestly say that I was one of them.
About ten minutes into the movie Paul, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost meet a Hispanic bellboy who proves to be one of the few people in the entire picture who knows nothing about ufos. By some odd coincidence, he always happens to be the film's only Hispanic character as well -- though to be fair, I was kinda surprised to see Pegg and Frost include such a character in the first place, given the fact that they do not exactly hail from a country with a large Hispanic population. Anyway, the scene with the bellboy struck me as puzzling because on one hand, Pegg and Frost were savvy enough to avoid the inevitable joke about illegal aliens. On the other hand, the scene seemed to come mighty close to including such a joke and indeed, the scene ends on such an awkward note that I could not help wondering why Pegg and Frost included it.
If that was the film's only flaw, I could have happily ignored it. After all, I have always liked Simon Pegg and it does not hurt that Frost and he both starred in Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, two of my favorite films of the last decade.
Yet this latest film they made together just did not work for me. Perhaps it was because the humorous side of aliens have been explored in the movies far more than Frost and Pegg's previous subject matter. Or perhaps it was because Pegg and Frost really did not have a lot to say about this subject that was all that imaginative. Occasionally, they came up with a nice sight gag and some witty dialogue but all too often they depended on the same rude humor that almost every other recent movie comedy has used.
Moreover, the main gimmick of their movie seemed to echo the gimmick of the atrocious Nora Ephron movie Michael: a traditionally asexual being comes down to earth and starts acting contrary to asexual tradition. The main difference, of course, being that instead of the being being an angel as in Michael, the being in this case is an extraterrestrial. Occasionally, Frost and Pegg tried to add a bit of social commentary by making the alien visitor -- an extraterrestrial nicknamed Paul -- an enlightened being who mentally and emotionally liberates almost everyone he comes in contact with -- a subplot the audience is undoubtedly supposed to find funny since the alien's chief form of liberation seems to involve encouraging people to cuss a lot, have sex and partake of illicit drugs. In short, Paul encourages the humans to do the kind of things they normally would have wanted to do anyway.
Even that would not have been so bad if so much of the movie's humor did not seem directed at a more sophomoric audience than the people who watched Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Thus, in place of the witty dialogue we have come to expect from Pegg and Frost, we get endless shots of Paul mooning the humans and doing various other off-color stunts. Plus we get the umpteenth ripoff of X-Files and Men in Black in the form of a subplot involving mysterious agents -- feds, natch -- who are attempting to stop Paul and his human companions when they are not acting as childish as the movie's intended audience.
Nevertheless, Paul has enough laughes that I can readily see why many people might enjoy it. I just wish I could honestly say that I was one of them.
Labels: Extraterrestres, Michael - Tan Sólo un Ángel, Nick Frost, Nora Ephron, Pablo, Películas de Ciencia Ficción I, Películas Nuevas IV, Simon Pegg
posted by Tonio Kruger at 11:06 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home