The Moviegoer: Getting Paul Home

I was primed to see Paul as I rewatched Hot Fuzz on television. I have enjoyed the work of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost since their movie Shaun of the Dead. Their wacky sense of humor meshes with mine and after seeing them deal with murder mysteries (Fuzz) and zombies (Shaun), I was anxious to see them take on aliens and Roswell. (Am I just imaging Pegg and Frost the modern-day descendents of Abbot and Costello?)

The film didn't let me down. Well written, with strong characters and lots of inside jokes for the sci-fi and comic book geeks, the film does several homages to works such as Speilberg's E.T. and Close Encounters. The acting is fun and whether you understand all the inside jokes, you'll enjoy the ride.

We react to Paul with much the same empathy I remember for E.T. While the character is broad, we root for him to be able to get home. A fun exercise would be to see the two Speilberg films before you go and read up on the latest Comi-Con activities.

One of my friends on Facebook wrote, "I saw it with my mother and we laughed all the way through it."