Fridae

From the British writing team that brought us Hot Fuzz, and Shaun of the Dead comes yet another warped parody of pulp American cinema and pop culture. In Paul, the genre skewered is the alien encounter film, so expect tonnes of references to Spielberg films as a madcap adventure unfolds when two British tourists (Pegg and Frost again) run into an alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) in the fabled Area 51 mecca of UFO and government conspiracy enthusiasts.

This being a road trip film, the writers leave no stone unturned as they take droll potshots at an entire swathe of weird Americana that exists along the Area 51-Roswell pilgrimage route. It’s not just convention geeks, comic book nerds, UFOlogists, the alien conspiracy tourist tie-in industry who provide the hilarity – but also rural culture, Christian fundamentalists, and send-ups of FBI spooks.

The cherry on top of this cake of laugh-a-minute madness is Seth Rogen, who plays the eponymous CGI alien as a potty-mouthed, badly behaved, laddish ET who is just as cute but feels so wrong after decades of wise, silent alien types permeating sci-fi films. Together with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the alien and two British nerds play up their fish out of water situation with aplomb as they careen through their road trip.

What adds to the richness of Paul is it’s not just a send-up of alien films but also an honest, loving and humorous take on science fiction fandom. Half of the humour in this film happens to be in-jokes that would put convention regulars and geeks in stitches. In this respect, Paul is an actually funny Fanboys.

It’s a mark of the quality of this comedy that the normally annoying Seth Rogen – who mugs so hard and self-conciously on film like Jack Black – is in fact one of the funniest characters in Paul.