"Paul" a stoner comedy out of this world.

While Greg Mottola's (the director of the iconic Superbad) direction, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, might lead us to believe that "Paul" was destined to be one of the best comedies of the 2010s, the reality is that we're dealing with a fun but forgettable film, one that deserves a chance more for its harmless nature than for its ability to tell a genuinely interesting story.

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Its premise is simple: we follow two friends named Graeme and Clive, who travel from the UK to the United States to attend Comic-Con and, along the way, visit Area 51, an infamous area in the United States that has always been associated with strange sightings and all kinds of conspiracy theories.

Thus, in the middle of their journey, they encounter Paul, a rather stereotypical alien who needs their help to return home.

From a thematic standpoint, there's nothing particularly remarkable about "Paul," a film that functions as a sequence of irreverent gags contained within a road trip movie that, were it not for the presence of several comedy and film stars like Bill Hader, Jason Bateman, and Sigourney Weaver, would quickly become repetitive.

There are a couple of interesting moments, especially when it allows itself to intertwine its comedy with sharp criticisms of religion (or generic perceptions of aliens), but overall, it's pretty clear what direction the plot will take from the very first minute.

The alien, created entirely with CGI, manages to convey enough emotion, and Seth Rogen's voice is much less annoying than expected.

In this way, we find that Paul was a film that had a formula for greatness but falls short. It's a solid time machine into 2011 popular culture, and it features several geeky nods and references that I know many will appreciate.

It represents Sunday movies in all their splendor, and it's hard not to appreciate that, although we'd obviously be better off spending our time doing something else.

This score was taken from my Letterboxd account.