Paul

Posted May 25, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

Graeme and Clive have travelled from Great-Britain to the US to visit Comic-Con and take an RV tour to visit some of the nation’s most well-known UFO hotspots. After visiting the Black Mailbox, they encounter Paul, an alien who’s on the run from the government who have been using his knowledge for years after he crashed on Earth but have now decided it’s time to dissect him and gather more information about his interiors.

The three get along pretty quickly and Paul needs their help in order to stay out of the hands of the fearsome agent Zoid and his accomplices, and get back to the place where he crashed so his people can come pick him up.

Sound and Vision:
Universal has done a great job with this transfer. The CGI character Paul looks stunning, the level of detail is great, skintones are natural, colors are great, blacks are deep and inky, and there’s not even a hint of compression errors to be found anywhere. Demo material without a doubt.

The sound is mostly focused on dialogue, but whenever the action pops up, the sound follows nicely. The surrounds light up, the subwoofer starts pounding and directionality is perfectly placed. Just like the image quality, the sound is impressive.

Extras:
- Audio commentary
- Bloopers
- The Evolution of Paul
- Simon’s Silly Faces
- Who the Hell is Adam Shadowchild?
- Galleries

Conclusion:
After zombies in Shaun of the Dead and gangsters in Hot Fuzz, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost team up once again to this time take on aliens in Paul. Or rather: one alien.

While their previous endeavours were clearly specific British comedy, Paul is more in line with American slapstick which in a way is too bad. Paul isn’t a bad movie, but it lacks somewhat the subtlety of their earlier comedies and in exchange we get a typical Seth Rogen who acts as the voice of Paul. If you don’t like Seth Rogen, you probably won’t like Paul. Paul is a digital version of Rogen with little to now difference.

Next to that, the story is a typical road movie with the usual stuff happening. All in all things aren’t very original what so ever. Still, looking at the overall picture, it’s not too bad and there are a couple of good laughs present, even if Pegg and Frost never manage to fully use their potential.

Technically, Universal does a good job again with their transfer of Paul onto Blu-ray and there truly isn’t anything we can say negative about this release in regards to that.

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