If E.T. were Rated R

In movies and sci-fi novels, extra-terrestrials are always depicted as smarter and more evolved than earthlings. But what if they’re just cooler?

That’s the premise behind Paul, the latest comedy from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the duo that wrote Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Not only does the alien creature here (voiced by omnipresent slacker Seth Rogan) smoke doobies and dance to Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give It Up, he’s way more chill than the two English dorks who set down in America to attend Comic-Con and pick up an alien and a girl in the bargain.

In Pegg and Frost’s previous outings, they satirized zombie movies and cop movies with quick wit and a loving touch; here Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and the whole Comic-Con lifestyle get similar treatment. The two Brits are absolutely insane about movies: obscure references get shoehorned into the script and spat out so fast, you’ll miss ‘em even after several viewings. Visual references fly by, too. The DVD “rewind” button is probably responsible for the average Brit’s Rain Main-like encyclopedic knowledge of modern movies. And Pegg and Frost don’t care if they’re referencing Point Break or Terminator — it’s all part of the postmodern Easter egg hunt.

Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) share a fondness for three-breasted aliens in Paul.

Of course, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind get the most onscreen riffs in Paul — the silhouettes shown running across backlit, smoky forests, the disguised alien (this time in cowboy gear), even the sight of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming — and Spielberg himself is featured in phone voiceover, asking the alien (who goes by the name of Paul) for details that he can work into his then-in-progress film, E.T., back in 1980.

This is a special kind of nirvana for sci-fi geeks, and Pegg and Frost have fun playing two English twits (Graeme and Clive) whose sad little lifetime dream is to visit Comic-Con in San Diego. The joke is that they’re as much fish out of the water in America as alien Paul, who’s fled from a top-secret lab in Area 51 (the infamous government facility in Nevada) and just wants to get home.

Rogan doesn’t have to do much here besides drawl and act like an intergalactic slacker — they motion-captured somebody else’s body to play the CGI alien Paul. Presumably, he was too lazy to do much more work. But at least he has fun doing the voice.

The script wittily alludes to conspiracy theories — the wild fantasies that bear just enough of a grain of truth to stay alive. “They’ll lock us up in Guantanamo Bay.” “But Guantanamo Bay’s closed.” (Pause for a beat.) “Is it…?” Or: “Careful with that weed, this is government sh*t, this is the stuff that killed Dylan.” “Bob Dylan’s not dead.” (Beat.) “Isn’t he?” (Background: Some conspiracy theorists still insist Dylan was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1966, or kept alive and hooked up to some government drug drip while a Dylan “impersonator” took over his career, presumably because the folk singer’s work was too “truthful.” Heavy, man.)

Skyrockets in flight: The ever-popular bird’s-eye view Close Encounters-type shot

And of course the biggest conspiracy theory of all involves Area 51, a large desert patch in southern Nevada that, technically, doesn’t exist, leaving the public to theorize what really goes on there. Super weapons research? Reverse-engineered alien technology? Alien cross-breeding experiments? Weather control? (The answer: all of the above.)

The only potential buzz kill here is that Pegg and Frost seem to have dumbed down their usually razor-sharp wit for a Hollywood movie. Whereas before, movie references would fly by (say, in Hot Fuzz) like bursts of semi-automatic gunfire, here the allusions cross the plate like lobbed softballs: slower, easier to catch. There’s a man-in-black FBI Agent named Lorenzo Zoil (say it fast) played by Jason Batemen, seeing off Paul with this line straight out of India Jones and the Temple of Doom: “Safe trip, Short Round.” There’s Paul hoisting a hand cannon, remarking, just like Alec Baldwin’s character did in Miami Blues: “A… very… big… gun.” There are the sunglasses worn by Kristen Wiig (playing a Creationist who runs a trailer park) and later by Bill Hader with one lens broken — echoing Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde. And so on.

Wiig amuses as Ruth, a rabid Jesus freak sporting a tee-shirt with a cartoon of Jesus shooting Darwin through the head. The shirt’s legend reads “Evolve This!” Not far from the actual sentiments of Creationists, actually, who fervently believe the earth is only 4,000 years old — not billions, as geologists and scientists would have you believe.

The script reflects a certain strain of British rationalism (which also turns up in Ricky Gervais’ humor a lot), finding smug and easy targets in American fundamentalists — too easy, in fact. The Christian skewering goes down a bit uneasily at times, with Paul depicted as a much more enlightened being who easily “evolves” dim-witted humans by laying a gentle hand on their heads: they instantly “see” the truth of mankind’s evolution (you know, how aliens mated with monkeys at the dawn of time? Oh… you didn’t read that part in the Bible?) and some learn to take a larger view of things, such as homosexuality (“It’s all just pleasure, man.”).

Paul, in short, is the kind of alien hipster a couple of Comic-Con slackers and potheads might imagine existed if they sat out in the Nevada desert and looked up to the skies: all-wise, all-knowing, ever-willing to party and get down, but also cranky at all the human foibles around him. He’s the super geek that comic geeks wish they could be.

FBI Agent Lorenzo Zoil (Jason Bateman) on the trail of aliens in Paul.

At one point, Clive (Frost) gets jealous of all the “bonding” between the alien and Graeme (Pegg). He pouts behind the wheel of their RV, until  Paul shrugs and offers to grant him a peek into his evolutionary past: “Pull over. I’ll do you.” Clive, ever the film and sci-fi geek, declines: “Absolutely not! No spoilers!”

Paul is a fun addition to the ever-growing alien canon, a kind of potty-mouthed E.T. for adults But one question lingers: if evolution eventually leads to extra-terrestrials who sound just like Seth Rogan, can it really be called “evolution”?