Far from apPauling

Paul
DIRECTED BY: Greg Mottola
STARRING: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen (voice), Kristen Wiig
CERT: 15A
How do you top a film like Shaun Of The Dead? Not very easily, as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost discovered with the lukewarm Hot Fuzz a few years back.

For their latest collaboration – their first as co-screenwriters – the boys have moved Stateside and previous writer/director Edgar Wright (who was busy making Scott Pilgrim) has been replaced by American, Greg Mottola, the man behind Superbad and Adventureland.
Pegg and Frost are Graeme and Clive, a pair of sci-fi geeks who’ve landed in heaven at San Diego’s geekfest, Comic-Con. The dream gets sweeter still when they hit the Extraterrestrial Highway in a rented RV, for a tour of the country’s UFO hotspots – including Area 51, home to crash-landing spacemen, top secret experiments and horror movie mutants.
The boys know all the stories but aren’t expecting to have an actual close encounter – until an alien pops up on the road in the middle of the night and introduces himself as Paul.
Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) has been a longtime resident at the local military facility but has just escaped and needs the boys’ help to make a rendezvous with his mothership.
Paul is not like any ET the lads have ever heard of – certainly he is nothing like the creatures that nice Mr Spielberg introduced to the world. Paul is a cynical, chain-smoking slacker, with a foul mouth and a fondness for bagels and marajuana.
Like his cute little cousin who phoned home, Paul has the power to heal – but for the maimed and dearly departed, the long-term outlook is not always positive.
Of course, an alien can’t be allowed to just up and leave the planet and so the government is hot on his trail – led by Special Agent Lorenzo Zoil (Jason Bateman) and clueless buffoons Haggard and O’Reilly (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio).
Also in pursuit is the father of a young woman they’ve managed to kidnap by accident. Ruth (Kristen Wiig) is the clichéd prim and proper Christian girl, whose Creationist beliefs are shattered by the ages-old alien, transforming her into a slapper who loves to invent new swear words. Which gets tired very fast.
Rogen’s smartass CGI alien starts grating on the nerves early doors too and I’m not sure he provides enough laughs to redeem himself by the end. The endless sci-fi movie references don’t mine many belly laughs either. How many lame Star Wars gags does a man have to sit through in this life?
Pegg and Frost remain a likeable pair and they do provide a few decent hoots on this road trip – and the clueless Feds serve up plenty. But they can do a lot better than this and anyone expecting the comedy gold of their earlier work will be a bit disappointed. This is Pegg and Frost-lite, diluted to appeal to the broadest possible audience – with the jokes spelt out, slapstick and vulgarity added for the knuckle-draggers and important life lessons for the Apatow crowd.
So not much originality on show here, though, in fairness, not every movie featuring an Aliens joke has Sigourney Weaver in the cast. And not every film with references to ET and Close Encounters has paid such affectionate tribute to the great Mr Spielberg. A few nice touches there but not enough class overall.

Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
DIRECTED BY: John Whitesell
STARRING: Martin Lawrence, Brandon T Jackson, Jessica Lucas
CERT: PG
No use asking why, or questioning the existence of a God who could allow such a thing. That way lies torment. Let’s just press on and try to get through this together.
Martin Lawrence brings the fat suit out for another run around the block, clearly imagining that if he tries enough times, eventually someone will laugh. This time out as FBI agent Malcolm, he’s handing out life advice to his stepson Trent (Jackson). Trent wants to be a rapper, but his cross-dressing stepdad is putting his stiletto down and making him go to college.
Turning up at a stakeout for a surprise chat with the old man, Trent witnesses the murder of Malcolm’s informer – who passes on some interesting info about a flash drive before he passes on to his great reward.
This incriminating evidence is apparently hidden in a music box, which is on display in the library of a performing arts academy. And would you believe it, it’s an all-girl school.
Bring out the suit, then. And some ladies’ clothes for the boy as well, who will enroll at the school to get them in the door.
Which is a worrying development, this passing down of the family trade. It leaves us with the terrible prospect of several more Big Momma sequels, as the son grows into the dresses.
I don’t think we want to go there.