Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost) are two British comic book geeks who decide to visit San Diego Comic Con.  They are would-be comic creators who have created one book which Clive wrote and Graeme illustrated which features a three titted alien woman on the cover.  They decide to take a road trip in an RV to famous UFO spots like Area 51, the Black Mail Box, and Roswell.   Along the way, they pick up an actual alien being who is nicknamed Paul and kidnap a Christian woman named Ruth (Kristen Wiig).   What follows is a road trip of rough language humor and geek references abound (including a honky tonk version of the Mos Eisley Catina Band music from STAR WARS and one of the characters throwing a line at a actress who said that line in another movie).

PAUL is really frigging hilarious and non-stop funny.   It is a charming film and I loved the geek references to STAR WARS and other sci-fi films.    Jason Bateman is interesting to see playing a straight serious character, Agent Zoyle who is hired to track down and bring Paul back.     Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright play great together as they are bound to put geek references in anything they write and star in.  I wonder what type of film they will come up with next.   Paul is a charming loud mouth of an alien who is shocking and yet endearing (I love the anal probe jokes and the smoking by Paul).   PAUL is a movie I would watch again several times on DVD or Blu-ray.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

THE EVOLUTION OF PAUL-  a look at the animation of the character of Paul.

WHO THE HELL IS ADAM SHADOWCHILD?-  a featurette on the fictional jerk sci-fi author.

The audio commentary (for theatrical cut only) is with director Greg Mottola, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Bill Hader, and Nir Park in what is a very entertaining audio commentary track

A blooper reel and a featurette of Simon's silly faces in addition to various galleries are on both the DVD and Blu-ray.

Exclusive to Blu-ray:

BETWEEN THE LIGHTNING STRIKES: THE MAKING OF PAUL- a two part 40 minute making-of documentary that covers the pre-production , production, and post-production of PAUL.  The best part is the road trip that Simon and Nick take in an RV in the Southwest with video and photos.

Multiple Behind-the scenes featurettes- seven featurettes on the film with the best bits being PAUL THE MUSICAL and THE MANY PAULS.

FINAL ANALYSIS:   PAUL is one of the best films of the year.   tHis set has lots of extras and kudos to Universal for not cutting the extras for the DVD included in the combo pack with the Blu-ray.

this review is (c)8-17-2011 David blackwell and cannot be reprinted iwthout permission.  send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com