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"Simon Pegg and Nick Frost join forces again, sharing the weight of expectation following hit comedies Hot Fuzz and Shaun Of The Dead. Fortunately the pressure doesn&amp;#039;t show too much. Their latest, Paul, is a bright and breezy caper about a couple of sci-fi geeks who venture to UFO hotspot Area 51 in Nevada and end up going on the run with the little green man of the title (voiced by Seth Rogen). It doesn&amp;#039;t feel as cutting-edge as their previous films, but it&amp;#039;s still a fun ride and the chemistry between Pegg and Frost keeps the story anchored in its spacier moments. As usual, Pegg and Frost (who co-write and star) derive humour in undercutting the Hollywood films they love with very British understatement. They evoke memories of Spielberg&amp;#039;s Close Encounters more than once, initially as Paul falls to earth and wakes a little girl from sleep. Years later he escapes from a government facility in Area 51 and boggles the minds of Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) who are on the road in a Winnebago looking for the Roswell experience. It&amp;#039;s quite the trip, especially because the creature (eerily animated in CGI and voiced by Rogen) is so ironically down-to-earth. While they fuss like schoolgirls, he urges them to &amp;quot;like, chill out&amp;quot;. Graeme decides he&amp;#039;s happy to give the spaceman a lift and shoot the breeze about life, the universe and everything while Clive broods jealously at the wheel. Then there&amp;#039;s Jason Bateman playing it straight in aviator sunglasses as the government spook on their trail, adding peril to what otherwise feels like a very offbeat stoner movie. It just so happens that Paul &amp;#039;partakes of the herb&amp;#039; and though he&amp;#039;s a freak, he looks effortlessly cool when standing next to Graeme and Clive - more so when they turn up the music and throw shapes around the campfire... This three-way dynamic offers plenty of comedy mileage, but the friendship between Clive and Graeme is the real backbone of the film. Clive feels ever more sidelined by the too-cool alien, which heightens the intrigue, but then progress is thrown off track by the abduction of Kristen Wiig. She gets her fair share of laughs as Jesus-loving Ruth Buggs, but the portrayal can also feel a little cruel at times. As writers, Pegg and Frost usually show affection for whatever Americanisms they happen to be sending up, but here they use Ruth (and her pa, played by John Carroll Lynch) to take easy (albeit wryly amusing) pot-shots at the Christian right. Even more distracting is Graeme&amp;#039;s crush on Ruth as she struggles to process Darwinism and extramarital sex. Paul is already the third wheel on this road trip and this just throws it off balance. The chase plot also sputters midway, leaving the film to coast on surreal moments of humour, like Paul bringing a dead bird back to life just to eat it. Another left turn brings them to the home of Paul&amp;#039;s first human encounter (a ditsy Blythe Danner) which lends symmetry to the journey, but only as an afterthought. The absence of Edgar Wright (director of Hot Fuzz and Shaun) may account for the lack of overall vision, but fortunately Greg Mottola (Superbad) does up the pace for a delirious, homage-filled finale. This isn&amp;#039;t one for the ages, but it&amp;#039;ll do for a Saturday night.  &amp;gt; What do you think of the movie? Share your views "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a302313/paul/>