by Madelyn Carter|Staff Writer
Two British geeks, plus Seth Rogen’s humor, plus my idol Kristen Wiig should equal a hilarious movie right? Sadly, (I mean really devastatingly), there were no “laugh out loud” moments in the movie “Paul.” I was so excited for this movie, you guys, but, my dreams were just crushed.
The story revolves around Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) two British comic book gurus in the States for Comic-Con. From there they head out for an RV trip to alien sighting spots in the US. An alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) slips into their care and this is where the vulgar, boyish humor erupts. This movie was rated R so I did see the cursing and sexual references coming, but not to this extent. It got to a point where it seemed like the writers (Pegg and Frost themselves) couldn’t think of any more jokes so they just threw in more “F” bombs and crude remarks.
When Kristen Wiig came into the film, my heart leapt for joy. I thought, “Finally, now it’s going to be funny.” Boy was I wrong. Wiig played Ruth Buggs, who starts out as die hard, crazy Christian, (as Hollywood seems to portray all Christians now). Usually when this comes into films, I’m not really insulted by it because it’s mild or funny, but this character crossed the line. Ruth lives with her overprotective, Bible carrying father who stands in front of a portrait of Jesus for most of his screen time, with a rifle on the dinner table. Once Ruth sees Paul, she begins to doubt her religion and thinks that if there’s no God she can sin and do whatever she wants. She even turns her shirt inside out that had a cartoon of Jesus shooting Charles Darwin in the face and says “Evolve this.” Classy touch really. The slams about how stupid and totally unrealistic Christianity is were not funny; literally no one in the half packed theatre laughed at the remarks.
Pegg and Frost’s nerdy humor and references to Sci-Fi movies were kind of funny, but only legit geeks could understand all of the jokes. The immense amount of offensive jokes and inappropriate scenes were not humorous and actually made me leave the theatre disappointed and angry.
If you’re into vulgar and slandering humor and are 17 or older, (or want to force your mommy to take you like I did), you’ll have a field day with “Paul,” but I give this movie a D-.
