Two nerds from the U.K. attend Comic-Con and partake on a journey in a rented R.V. through the southwest on a tour of supposed UFO sites. After eluding a run in with some locals at a diner, the pair approaches a car on the road which veers off and crashes and burns in the adjoining desert. As they stop to help, a green, stereotypically looking, wisecraking, pot smoking alien emerges from the wreckage and makes his acquaintance. Having escaped from a government facility and being chased by a dogged agent, the little guy asks for assistance and as the nerds gain their composure they decide to help. Picking up a sheltered young woman along the way, as well as a few pursuers, the oddly assorted gang is in a race to return the visitor to his spaceship before he is retrieved and his brain is extracted. "Paul", directed by Greg Mottola and written by stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, is a one joke movie which isn't helped by the fact that the joke is voiced by Seth Rogen. Ok, maybe there is slightly more to it then that. Pegg and Frost are humorous and amiable, I like Kristen Wiig as the girl they pick up, and Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio are pretty damn funny as a pair of FBI agents. I also liked the southwestern locations as well. However, the laughs begin to wear thin and the movie does not know when to quit, regressing into another action picture and going on probably 45 minutes longer than it should. It's been a recurring gripe of mine lately that comedic flicks are becoming way too long. It's been said that making a good comedy is the hardest thing to do in the film, and the recent bloated running time of these films is only making that maxim more evident.
