I know often my reviews run a little different than others here. But please take my word if you're thinking about spending any money on this. Don't.

I just paid $5 on PPV. I was looking forward to this too. I laughed every time I saw the commercial back when it was in theaters. I can say, without hesitation, this was easily the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. Just awful. Almost every line of every scene.

And yes, I absolutely got the sci fi references they sprinkle throughout. And a few made me chuckle. But the rest is so horrible it was an act of will to sit through.

If this had been shot on a super low budget, maybe you could give it some credit for the occasional creative moment or subtle humor. But it cost 40 million! It actually would be a challenge to write a script this bad. I mean, someone would almost have to do it on purpose, like that Seinfeld episode when he bombs intentionally to kill the crowd for the guy that follows.

I'm not even going to bother getting into the specifics, unless someone really wants to get into them. I watched a 100k budget movie last night that, bad as it was, was better than Paul. Much better.

Since I will probably again be on an island on this one, let me give some quick examples, and unfortunately I didn't take notes.

SPOILERS

-No less than 4 people faint at the sight of Paul. They faint, and they faint hard, not waking up for a long time. Very strange. And when the two red necks faint, they have to be taken away terrified in an ambulance. Come on, please.

-Ever present is the absolute ultimate in cinematic convenience. The girl's father, two goofy cops, and the Man in Black are chasing the guys with Paul. They ALL bump into each other literally at every turn. Even on crowded sidewalks.  And, the two red necks that are pissed at our intrepid nerds run into them in another bar across the state. Not only that, but the red necks happen to get in a fight with the girl the nerds have picked up along the way.

-the girl, Ruth, is the daughter of a bible belt kind of guy. The stereotype employed is so off the mark it's not remotely funny. Ruth's acting in these "religious" discussions is so badly acted that I expected her to break out and giggles at any moment. The bad acting might be due to the horrible dialogue that was scripted. And I think these parts of the movie were supposed to be some kind of serious commentary. It managed to be both nonsensical and not funny at the same time.

-Ruth's conversion: Paul does the Vulcan mind meld, shares his knowledge. With this knew knowledge, she still struggles to adjust her world view for a scene, and the whole scene is ridiculous. But it gets worse when, during a discussion on this, she suddenly changes her whole world view and decides she's going to instantly begin swearing, fornicating, and intoxicating. It's foolish, which would be fine if it was somehow funny, but it's not even remotely so. They have her swearing every second, but she mixes up the swears because she's so new to it. And again, none of it makes sense or is funny.

-The man in black has two cops helping him find the alien, though they don't know that's what they're looking for. These cops are presented as likable dimwits. When they find out they're looking for an alien, they're pissed at the man and black. One suspects they might now help the alien, but someone must have told the writers that's too cliche and predictable. So they took it the other way, and turned them into the real bad guys. They try to capture the alien themselves, and become trigger happy, shooting at Paul and the gang every chance they can. Huh? I mean they went from likable, geeky cops to raging, murderous cops. It made no sense, except that the script kind of needed it to happen, because of the big "twist", where the Man in Black(Jason Bateman) turns out to be a good guy out to help Paul. So in order to have antagonists, I guess we had to have the lovable cops take a turn for the worse. More script convenience.
-the ending. OK, the whole movie is a constant barrage of geek references to older sci fi movies. Fine. So it makes sense that Sigourney Weaver has a big cameo when she comes in as the "Big Guy". I'll even buy into that. But the Big Guy lands in a helicopter and takes on our gang by herself. No army, no backup. Just an absolutely silly little fight with her against the two nerds, Paul, Ruth, and the crazy lady. I was scratching my head.

And that's where I'll leave this. Scratching my head. It seems every review I've seen of this online is positive, glowing even. I don't get it. Maybe it's the "bromance" factor which seems to endear this to critics. Maybe it's the constant sci fi references that make some smart people snicker and go "I get it". Maybe bashing red necks is just automatically funny with a certain crowd, whether it's actually clever or not. I don't know. I'm scratching my head.

In case anyone is wondering, BTW, I am not a red neck nor am I religious. I'm fine with having fun with these type of characters and issues. But it's just not well done here. It's what I would have expected if this was written by some kids in a college film class, people who had grown up in suburbs and had little experience of the outside world. Certainly no experience of "red state" people; people that like Nascar and country music.

Final note: the basic premise of the story revolves around two foreign guys(English) touring the west in an RV who end up with an alien along for the ride. There is a script here at SS which is strangely similar, but what was written long before this, and which absolutely blows Paul away. I can't think of the name of it, but it's the zombie script written by Stevie which has two Aussies in a similar situation, except they get a zombie. Stevie's script is light years funnier than Paul. I actually laughed out loud frequently reading Stevie's script.

I agree with most of what you said but I can't say that I didn't enjoy this movie. I came into watching this one though with absolutely no prior knowledge to what it was about or seeing any trailers (somehow). I found the movie good for what it was, however, I thought there was so much potential for it to be hilarious. It was just a mediocre film and wit the talent that they had could have been something great. I'm also disappointed with Kristen Wiig's performance because everything I've seen with her in SNL and Bridesmaids has proven she is comedic gold but everyone in this movie never really reached their potential. The more I do think about how funny it could have been makes me dislike it more but for what it was I was entertained and got a few laughs out of it and with most of the new releases these days, that's all you can really ask for isn't it?

I agree with most of that, Kev. And it did add to my frustration. This really was a fantastic premise, and they spent a lot of money to make Paul look really cool. It should have been hilarious. If this had been an ultra low budget, alternative type film, I would have respected it more. But it was big budget with talented people involved.

Kristen Wiig was so bad in this that I didn't know if it was supposed to be tongue in cheek or something. It was like she got on set without having read her lines, and then when she read them couldn't believe how silly they were so couldn't get into them.

You may have seen my post on Dinner for Schmucks. No one liked that here and it got bad reviews, but I actually laughed quite a bit. Maybe it's me. I love the Three Stooges too.

Making fun of zombie movies with "Shaun of the Dead". Priceless.
Making fun of beloved E.T. with stoner and dick jokes. Worthless.

I think I laughed like twice. And they were trailer moments.
Talent filled staggeringly flatline high concept comedy for me.

E.D.

I'm glad you said that, Brett. You know me, I always say what I think, and I thought maybe I'd be by myself on this. Sometimes I feel like I see things so differently from others that I start to wonder if I'm like Paul, from another planet. Every single professional review I found online was raving positive about this film. I just don't get it.

I did think the beginning was decent. It was slow moving, but the subtle sci fi geek humor gave me some chuckles. The English geeks roaming the foreign landscape of Nevada was clever...outsiders who end up with the ultimate outsider as their guest.

Ironically, the movie really goes downhill when Paul arrives, even though Paul is well done and funny in his way. This SHOULD have been funny. Maybe part of the problem is writers who play their own characters. I realize they've had some success, but maybe in general this is a bad idea.

Shame about that, I was looking forward to seeing this. Maybe lower expectations will help.

I checked the figures and it still managed to take $100m worldwide. Maybe this shows what a good concept can bring in even if poorly executed.

Maybe I should dust down my "two english explorers and a penguin cross the antarctic on a wind surfer epic!!"

I'm not surprised it made money. A movie is all about the trailers, and these trailers were awesome. Just the idea of a stoner alien in flip flops makes me laugh.

Stevie's zombie script blows Paul away. But I don't know if the zombie has the same appeal as the "cute" little Paul. Zombies are generally not warm and cuddly. But his script is hilarious.

Thanks for the kind words about my script Headlong, Kev!

I haven't seen Paul or read the script, but i recall thinking it was similair in concept to mine at the tiime, as did my missus.

I had planned to get off my arse and enter Headlong in a comp. But maybe now, well, we all know that I wrote it before Paul came out, and it was not influenced by it at all, but now my script might be looked at as not 'original'.

i dunno, I might just be paranoid...

I don't think that's a problem Stevie.

Sounds more like an updated version of weekend at Bernies than Paul.

Think it needs a better name than "Headlong" though.

Paul...

It wasn't funny.

There are other problems with the movie, but what else really matters when you've got a comedy that isn't funny?

Don't waste your time.

I think Headlong had multiple moments where you laugh out loud. It's a great concept, and the lead characters were kind of like the Aussie Bill and Ted on an American adventure. One thing, I think Headlong is marketable right now, but is not ready for contests, if that makes any sense. Contests are about writing. It needs a lot more polishing, a solid rewrite. But I think a producer could look at it and decide they want to option and then fix it up before filming. I definitely see it as marketable.

Yeah, cheers Kev. I was gonna go through it and cut some.  The bar scene is way too long so I can do some editing there.

And yeah, Rick, I was thinking of changing the title. Headlong was the original title from when there was no zombie involved. I'm a big fan of one word titles.

I'll give the script another read and see what happens.

But if I don't enter it in a comp Kev, how can I get it out there? At least I can get some feedback for it in a comp

Problem is that unless you're a finalist in the contest, I don't see how it gets noticed. And even then, there are only a very small number of contests that seem to be watched by the industry. At least that's what I hear.

As far as getting it out there, there are others here that can answer that far better than me. It seems Inktip is the best way, though it costs a little. You better make sure the title, the log, and the pitch are real good so it has a chance to get noticed.

Scripts do get noticed here, too, especially by the smaller companies, if you're willing to go that route. Other than that, I guess you have to find ways to pitch it in person to the right people. Not easy if you're not in LA.

If you're going to pitch it here, I suggest, as Rick said, a new title, and get your logline down to one sentence. Maybe repost this so you can grab first reply in the thread, and get a poster up there like the ones Brett does for his zombie project.

Best I can think of, Stevie.

Cheers mate, I'll give it some thought.


Its hard being over here in Oz sometimes. I haven't really got the cash to be getting around with it. I was gonna spend 50 bucks on a comp - Fresh Voces was the one I was looking at. At least I would get some feedback from it, from people over there in the price.

i gave this one a C+ pretty much on cast alone. the script wasn't that great, but i love pegg, frost, bateman, and wiig so much, that they really made it bearable. i found this movie impossible to hate, but hard to like. i laughed a few times, but when your resume includes shaun of the dead and hot fuzz, you're going in expecting a lot. as a sci-fi geek, i really appreciated a lot of the references to other sci-fi films. but most of the jokes were juvenile and cliched.

overall, the actors did A LOT with the script. they made it worth watching, even though the script itself wasn't anything special. which is a shame because i REALLY wanted to like this one.

did anyone else think that rogen's voice was a bit too distracting? he sounds so unique that his voice really took me out of the movie and made me doubt paul as a character.

I thought Rogen did a good job, though even that character was disappointing because of the weak dialogue of the script. Sometimes the alien in Paul reminded me more of the Geiko lizard, who is actually funnier.

Bateman did a good job, but didn't really add much humor to the movie. As for Pegg and Frost, this would have probably been really funny if they just did this trip for real, went to sci fi conventions and famous ET locations like Area 51. Their deadpan humor would be perfect for that. But they're not real actors, IMO, so they shouldn't be starring in a 40 million dollar movie. They just aren't funny enough.

Wiig's performance is up there with the all time worst I've ever seen in any movie. It's that bad. Again, I'm sure a lot had to do with the horrible script. I doubt she'll be in a major film role again any time soon.

I found this film so bad I feel like the producers owe me compensation for the lost 2 hours. Sorry, that's just how I feel, and I'm usually not this harsh on movies. There's no excuse for this movie being this poor. And every film critic loved it. You know, the last person you should take advice from on how to run a business is usually a business professor. Maybe this is similar. The last people we should listen to on movie opinions is film critics. I wonder how many people laughed out loud at this in the theater. That's what we need, a device to measure that!

really? you thought wiig was that bad in this? personally, i don't find many women on SNL funny (then again, i don't find many men funny either). but i love wiig. and I'll assume you're joking/trolling about her having a major film role any time soon haha

difference of opinion i guess. i like your idea of the LOL-meter. and it would probably work (until its employed during tyler perry's why did i get married too....)

Quoted from leitskev But they're not real actors, IMO, so they shouldn't be starring in a 40 million dollar movie.

Surely there are greater offenders out there...

holy hell in a hand basket. heretic, can you believe that sigourney weaver, sigourney fucking weaver, is in that shit? RIP ripley...

All I can say is that we have to start giving Hollywood the message. Once they have our $12.50 or $4.99 for VOD they don't really care if we think that the movie's the worst thing we've ever seen...

There are plenty of "mainstream indie" movies to see - from the Oscar nominated "Winter's Bone" and "The Kids are All Right" to the more forgotten cult classics like "Assassination of a High School President" and "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints". Great performances throughout all these pics...

And if you haven't seen 'The Invention of Lying' yet, which I'm sure most of you have, definitely do so. While not laugh out loud funny, it's brilliantly written and wonderfully satirical - though a discussion of its Kantian overtones is best done in its own thread...

Oh, and Kev? About Wiig never being in another major film role? Her passion project 'Imogene' is filming now - and it stars her, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon and Darren Criss from Glee... (0:

Lol. I don't wish any career misfortune on Wiig. I'm sure she's a wonderful person. Maybe she's a good actor too, and this just wasn't her role. That character was horribly scripted by people who have some naive notions about American "flyover" country people.

You are right about Hollywood, but it's more than that. Unless we are to consider that the film critics are in the pocket of Hollywood. I mean, every newspaper online I could find gave this film a glowing review. I couldn't even find a bad remark within any of the articles. People choose their movies primarily on what the trailer: do the scenes appeal, does the premise interest, do we recognize the actors. But even if you vetted this story and did your homework, you'd get the idea from the reviews that this story was fantastic. So what are we to do?

This actually recalls something I mentioned in another thread, where people were asking what's ruining movies. I floated this theory: movie buffs are ruining movies. People that are really into film, that have seen thousands of movies and really love dissecting film, tend to look for different things in film than the rest of the population. They tend to come from a very particular and narrow ideological perspective, and they suffer from a degree of group think. An they are the ones doing the reviewing. This absolutely influences how pictures are made.

About a year ago I read that the writing for television is kind of in a golden age, and TV shows are thought to be really well written and constructed now. But for whatever reason, the opposite has happened in film. Why is that?

I think Paul illustrates the problem. It's a bad movie, and though my opinion is subjective, I listed the reasons above that are very specific and central to the story. And yet it's glorified by all the film "experts". What the H is going on? Unless one thinks that the reviewers are bought off, and I don't think that, then it must be something else. So I think it's the movie buffs. They've become their own isolated, special class, they see the world through their own prism. And they have an enormous influence on movies, at least Hollywood.

That's my fire everyone up thought for the day! Happy Labor Day!

The film critics are often directly employed by the studioes.

News Corp owns Fox and owns papers like the Times and the Sun.

You'll get glowing reviews of dire films that just happen to have been produced or distributed by Fox, for instance.

A great example was the dire Revolver by Guy Ritchie. It couldn't get a distribution deal, then Fox got it, there were full page spreads on it and interviews in the paper and they even managed to get it nominated for an Oscar.

Here's a related breakdown:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2005/oct/03/pressandpublishing.sun

Very few film critics are actually experts on film any more, they are just people picking up a wage and don't want to upset the apple-cart. The kind of film buffs that you are talking about are few and far between imho.

We could go through the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes one by one to get an idea of who owns the critics:

Rolling Stone is owned by the Walt Disney Company for instance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jann_Wenner

You then get companies like the Gannet company who own USA Today and numerous other publications as well as TV stations. There's a sort of conflict of interest there, as disparaging major studioes product may prevent them getting films for the stations, or interviews with their papers and they require advertsing money from the very people they are supposed to criticise.

Film buffs are the least of the problems. They would rip a film like Paul apart in the same way you did.

I seriously think the only thing that would work would be a year's worth of boycotting the so-called "big films" - not just the superhero reboots but the recycled plots and the ones starring Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd, etc.

And yes, Paul sounds like a recycled plot to me - like two people sat in a room and said "what if two stoners had found E.T. instead?" And then they choked on some ganga smoke while laughing, and the next day when the fog cleared they proceeded to apply a a 90 minute base coat of crap to a funny logline...

The strange thing is that it was such a wonderful year for film and for the non-traditional movie. The Kids are All Right, Black Swan, The King's Speech, Winter's Bone, Crazy Heart, etc. All nominated for academy awards, all with top actors and great performances, and all produced by people and companies outside of the traditional Hollywood machine...

Quoted from ajr All I can say is that we have to start giving Hollywood the message. Once they have our $12.50 or $4.99 for VOD they don't really care if we think that the movie's the worst thing we've ever seen... There are plenty of "mainstream indie" movies to see - from the Oscar nominated "Winter's Bone" and "The Kids are All Right" to the more forgotten cult classics like "Assassination of a High School President" and "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints". Great performances throughout all these pics... And if you haven't seen 'The Invention of Lying' yet, which I'm sure most of you have, definitely do so. While not laugh out loud funny, it's brilliantly written and wonderfully satirical - though a discussion of its Kantian overtones is best done in its own thread... Oh, and Kev? About Wiig never being in another major film role? Her passion project 'Imogene' is filming now - and it stars her, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon and Darren Criss from Glee... (0:

Interesting post.

From my own point of view the last thing I want to pay to see at the cinema are things like Winter's Bone. That kind of film is as good watched on the little screen, and to be perfectly honest, I rarely get much pleasure out of serious drama films. Feels like I've been there and seen it all and they are never nearly as good as the novels from which they invariably appeared from.

What people really want to see are good examples of genre films.

Even "pretty good" films like Taken get raved about by the public, if not critics, because they provide a type of film experience that people simply don't get anymore...decent genre action.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Interesting post. From my own point of view the last thing I want to pay to see at the cinema are things like Winter's Bone. That kind of film is as good watched on the little screen, and to be perfectly honest, I rarely get much pleasure out of serious drama films. Feels like I've been there and seen it all and they are never nearly as good as the novels from which they invariably appeared from. What people really want to see are good examples of genre films. Even "pretty good" films like Taken get raved about by the public, if not critics, because they provide a type of film experience that people simply don't get anymore...decent genre action.

Back atcha!

Interesting post as well Rick because I just had a conversation with my wife about this very topic - the fact is that because of VOD and redbox and the internet, etc., only the visually stunning movies will go to theaters. I often wonder if a movie like 'The Sting', which is as perfectly crafted a movie as you can get, would get a theatrical release in today's market? It's visually appealing because it's a period piece, but it's very plot heavy. So what would a distributor do?

I think the Sting would have a shot...but it would have to be glammed up a bit...given the Ocean's Eleven treatment so to speak.

Well Newman and Redford made it a case closed argument, but I wonder what a similar type movie would do in today's world. You make a good point with Ocean's Eleven because those are visually appealing movies, yet they also have George Clooney and other star power behind them.

What would a very-well made movie with some up-and-comers do in today's market? Probably go to festivals, get a arthouse movie theatre release, and then go to VOD, or a combination of these elements. This was the case with movies like The Perfect Age of Rock n' Roll and White Irish Drinkers...

Truthfully, I find it hard to have much sympathy with films like White Irish Drinkers.

I'm falling asleep at the name alone. It just conjures up an image of cliched, blue collared type people doing stuff we've seen in a million festival films.

That's completely prejudicial as I've never heard of it, but it's just how I feel. There's some movies made that seem less interesting to me than an average 90 minute in my own life, so I just can't be mithered with them.

I can't imagine why anyone would go and spend their hard earned money to watch it at the cinema.

Perfect Age has got 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, which doesn't bode well...even accepting possible bias!

If you're going to do drama, you've got to do it blindingly well. They are often based on uninteresting events in comparison to other films, so they need to be blessed with something really special. More often than not, I don't find anything in them at all to be interested in. They are equally as banal in their own way as the superhero movies, just without the bells and whistles.

I think the Sting remake could be very cool and successful if it had the right actors, and like Rick said, if the gave it the Oceans 11 treatment. You'd have to change the script, but the basic concept would work. And with the right budget, Depression era Chicago could be made to look pretty cool.

I think the sting itself would have to involve a poker game. Horse betting is largely a thing of the past. Maybe it could involve another type of sports betting, like ultimate fighting.