WARNING: SPOILERS CONTAINED IN THE SECOND PART OF THIS REVIEW
I have fond memories of the kids' TV show No. 73, but they're fairly vague ones, probably because by the time it finished, I was still only eleven years old. I remember celebrity guests, a quiz game with a sandwich-making gimmick, and having quite a crush on the young Sandi Toksvig.
I also remember Chris Sievey's comic creation Frank Sidebottom, who made regular guest appearances. At first I found his nasal voice and papier mache head creepy to the point of being hard to watch, but his relentless cheerfulness soon won me over. A decade or two later I reacquainted myself with his music, and I was charmed all over again.
It was with great sadness, therefore, that I learned of Sievey's death in 2010 - another part of my childhood had been lost forever. I was sad for a little while in the way that you are about celebrities for whom you've had a vague fondness, but life goes on and a thousand other interesting things captured my attention instead. I heard they were making a movie about him, but didn't think much about it barring making a mental note to see it at the earliest possible opportunity.
Frank isn't a straight-up biopic, however; rather, it's an updated reimagining of the true story of screenwriter Jon Ronson's time spent as the keyboardist in Sidebottom's band. It hauls events right up to the present day, where frustrated songwriter Jon Burroughs (Domnhall Gleeson) is walking through his seaside hometown in search of inspiration. Witnessing a commotion on the beach, he goes to find out what's going on, only to find that the individual trying to drown himself is a keyboard player in a band that has a gig that evening.
Even Jon himself isn't entirely sure how he lands up replacing the unfortunate individual, but it is this that earns him his spot in the Soronprfbs, along with Baraque, Nana, Don, Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the titular Frank (Michael Fassbender), who never removes his papier mache head. In the manner of pretty much every rock flick ever made, the rest of the movie concerns itself with the band's rise and eventual, spectacular fall.
The good
I've always had a lot of time for Jon Ronson, if only because he's responsible for teaching me that being a nervous wreck doesn't necessarily preclude the leading of a basically happy and fulfilled life. I love his books, and while I'm not sure whether The Men Who Stare At Goats was a good film, it'd take a very hard heart indeed to think it wasn't a good time. In Frank, he's constructed a trim, tidy piece of storytelling about some very untidy characters and he's made it look absolutely effortless. Funny and moving by turns, the film moves at a comfortable but brisk pace and ends at the exact right moment to provide maximum satisfaction.
A lot of people have been raving about Fassbender's performance inside the head, which isn't surprising, as it's the sort of thing people do usually like to rave about. Certainly, he does a great job of making Frank talented and likeable, a plausible leader of what sometimes feels less like a band and more like a cult in miniature. It isn't a one-man show, however - Domnhall Gleason is a superb everyman who never entirely understands the consequences of his actions, while Maggie Gyllenhaal steals every scene she's in as the surly Clara, who almost certainly does.
Musically, Frank feels unusually authentic; it took Mr. Beaupepys to point out to me that this was because the majority of the cast play their own instruments, lending a genuine sense of immediacy that plays well in the midst of all the interpersonal chaos on screen.
All in all, this is a really neat, satisfying piece of filmmaking that I think anybody could probably enjoy.
The bad
You might have been sensing a but coming up in the previous paragraphs, and you'd be right.
But, dammit, why does the film's structure have to depend so heavily on the Magically Mentally Ill? Some of us have to live with this shit every day, and all it does is poison our lives and exhaust our loved ones and piss all over our chances of attaining more than a passable imitation of an acceptable level of normality. True, some people with mental illness achieve miraculous things, but who's to say what they might have achieved without it?
By all accounts, Chris Sievey was as sane as a brick; would it have been so very hard to construct a narrative where his fictional counterpart was, too? As an added bonus, had this been the case we'd have been spared the sight of a half-bald, mumbling Fassbender doing what looked like some fairly transparent Oscar-baiting. Sure, it makes for a nice myth, but Ronson at least is smarter than that; I'm sure he could have come up with something less trite and almost certainly more interesting.
Bonus snipe: all those cute Twitter graphics are currently great for reminding us we're in the present day, but within the space of the next decade or so, I'd lay money on them making it look like a bit of a period piece.
The verdict
A likeable and very well-constructed film that disappoints with its eventual descent into cliché. Still worth a watch, but reading about the life of the real Frank Sidebottom is probably going to ultimately be more satisfying.
If you know anything at all about the two movies in the title, you might be wondering why I decided to review them together. The simple answer is that I saw both of them yesterday and realized I couldn't find much to say about either, so I thought I might as well be dismissively cursory about them both and get this finished before work so I wouldn't be spending my afternoon slaving over a hot PC.
Spawn, therefore, is an adaptation of the Todd McFarlane comic books; it tells the story of a top-flight mercenary assassinated by his boss in order to lead the armies of Hell. Spawn has horribly burned skin, but makes up for it with kickass armour and a remarkable sense of morality for someone who formerly killed for pay. Spawn also has a very, very cute dog.
Death Becomes Her, on the other hand, represents Robert Zemeckis' attempt to capture the glory and box office revenue of the Back to the Future trilogy. It stars Bruce Willis as a nerdy cosmetic surgeon, and Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn as the women who fight over him. Both the Streep and Hawn characters are desperate to maintain their youth, to the extent that they're prepared to drink an immortality potion that allows them to regain their youthful looks unless, say, they're horribly injured in an accident. Or an "accident".
The good
Spawn first: Spawn has a very, very cute dog.
Death Becomes Her: As the witch in charge of the immortality potion, Isabella Rossellini looks very, very good in very, very few clothes.
The bad
How was I bored by thee, Spawn? Let me count the ways. Or, y'know, let me not, because that would take too long. The film was incoherent, adolescent dreck specifically designed to cater to the sort of kids who cheer on the kids who go on gun rampages in America's schools every year or so. I'm not mentioning the acting because there wasn't a lot of it going on, except for John Leguizamo's satanic clown, who irritated me even more than the young lovers from Rock of Ages. I'm having trouble writing more than this, because the rest of the film was just that forgettable.
Death Becomes Her, on the other hand, represents a little more of a wasted opportunity - there were interesting themes, and a great cast who were obviously committed enough to the project to be prepared to abandon their dignity. In the end, though, any wider observations on human vanity and shallowness were abandoned in favour of a gleeful focus on having awful things happen to the two equally awful female protagonists. The movie hates everyone, but damned if it doesn't hate women most especially. Oh, and pro tip? If you have to write a scene that features an obese person overeating (because what else do obese people do?), you should probably be aware that we don't miss our mouths quite that much. That's, ah, kind of the reason we're obese.
The verdict
Probably shouldn't have done such a rush job on these; don't care. Normal service will resume on Saturday, when I'll hopefully be tackling something a bit less shit.
I'd actually not been planning on writing an entry this side of the weekend because of technical difficulties; namely, I couldn't un-weld my backside from the sofa even after I got a working monitor on the computer again. Besides, I've been mainlining Elementary lately and I haven't been in a particularly film-y mood. Flaky? Certainly. Filmy? Not so much.
Then last night came around and I found myself frantically channel-hopping to escape the creeping menace of something or other about Canterbury Cathedral. As I scrolled down the listings, I noticed Con Air and I thought well, why not? I'd seen it once before at Mr. Beaupepys' request, and he was right - it really had been a surprisingly good time.
I should explain: I don't really do action movies, and most particularly not late 90s action movies. Let us not forget, this was the era of Armageddon, and the time before Michael Bay's name was the punchline to a joke nobody wanted to hear. There was a lot of overly violent, overly macho dreck being made, and at the time I was stuck living with a charmless oaf who wanted to watch it all. Con Air had managed to slip under my radar thanks, if I recall correctly, to no small amount of effort on my part, and I spent a decade and a half perfectly happy about this state of affairs.
Until Mr. Beaupepys managed to sell it to me as Steve Buscemi's finest hour, at which point, feeble-minded fangirl that I am, I did a U-turn faster than your political or sexual simile of choice.
The story isn't anything particularly novel: Nic Cage plays Cameron Poe, a basically decent sort of guy who accidentally kills a man whilst trying to defend his pregnant wife. Sent to prison, he spends his considerable amounts of free time working on his body and mind, and writing letters to the daughter he's never had the chance to meet. Time passes montage-style (inevitably) and eventually he finds himself on a plane that will bring him home just in time for the little girl's birthday. Poe is a parolee and considered low risk, but he's surrounded by rapists and multiple murderers.
Do I really have to tell you what happens next? Probably not, but I will anyway. The prisoners get loose, mayhem ensues and it's up to Poe to try and save the day and get home with his daughter's birthday present intact.
The good
Damned if all popcorn flicks shouldn't be like this. Con Air is big, brash and utterly unafraid of ticking every single box in The Big Book Of Action Movie Clichés. There's something joyous in its total lack of pretension; it knows it caters to a demographic that wants explosions, one-liners and sweaty men in white vests, and it delivers all of these in abundance with a side order of extra gusto.
And that cast! Look at it! We have Nic Cage from before he became a walking talking self-parody, and John Malkovich from shortly before his disappearance into his own head. John Cusack and Colm Meaney provide able ground support as a State Trooper and FBI man respectively, while Steve Buscemi, as mentioned before, steals the film and runs away with it, giggling hysterically, as Garland Greene, a bona fide psycho killer with an unexpectedly sociable side.
There's a lot of shifting allegiances and motivations at play here; it's not exactly David Mamet, but a certain level attention is required if you want to keep track of everything. If you do. This isn't a film that makes petulant demands on your concentration, and it's happy to keep you secure in your warm and snuggly testosterone coccoon if you just want to sit back and enjoy the explosions, one-liners and vests. It's not overly serious, it's not overly meaningful, and it's just forgettable enough to be a pleasant surprise if you re-watch once every couple of years.
All of which is great, but not completely unexpected. The thing that struck me on re-watching Con Air with my critic's head on, however, is how incredibly right-minded it is. The good guys and the bad guys both come in various colours, and sometimes they're even the same people; midway through the film the plane picks up a trans character, and nobody seems to give it a second thought. Movies of this genre tend to use stereotypes as shorthand, making it really refreshing to find one that treats all its characters as people rather than placeholders.
The bad
Just a couple of minor gripes here - this is another one of these ones that's so much fun that I don't particularly want to nitpick. There's a chase sequence in the last act that feels extraneous, though, just tipping the movie over the edge of popcorn perfection towards being too long and too loud.
More female roles would have been nice, too - all Poe's wife and daughter get to do is stand around like a pair of startled blonde deer, and we never get any real sense of who they are or why he's fighting for them. That said, Rachel Ticotin's prison guard Sally Bishop is one of the film's more subtly-written characters; she's tough but not invulnerable, and her scenes with Danny Trejo's rapist Johnny 23 are some of the most tense in the film. They culminate in a victory that offers genuine emotional satisfaction.
The verdict
Sometimes you want Michelin-starred dining, but sometimes you just want a hamburger and fries. Unashamedly meaty (and with just the right amount of cheese), Con Air is the burger to satisfy your basest cravings without leaving behind even the faintest hint of a bad taste.
Going to skip the preamble this time, because today's film is far more interesting than the relationship I have with it. Suffice it to say that it's one of these fascinating little curios I occasionally find when I'm searching through iPlayer; I first ran into it a good few months ago, and when I started writing about films it was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to bring to a (marginally) wider audience. I've succeeded, too - when I re-watched it yesterday, Mr. Beaupepys watched it along with me. He was impressed, I think, although my expression of maniacal enthusiasm might have influenced him, or possibly the rifle I'd pointed at his head.
Anyway, Skeletons. It's a low-budget, low-special-effects comic fantasy about Davis (Ed Gaughan) and Bennett (Andrew Buckley), a pair of psychic detectives in the employ of the mysterious Colonel (Jason Isaacs). They travel the country, mostly on foot, identifying the houses of their clients by pen-and-ink drawings and then donning leather aprons and entering said clients' inner lives via their bedroom closets. For Bennett, it's just another day at the office, but Davis lives and breathes his job. He spends his downtime in the derelict trawler that serves as his home, endlessly revisiting scenes from his childhood, much to the concern of those who care about him.
It sounds like the setup for yet another generic horror movie, doesn't it, or at least a psychic variant on the Men in Black franchise. That was certainly what I assumed I was getting prior to watching the film for the first time. What I found, however, was stranger, smarter and much, much sweeter...
The good
In case it wasn't already obvious, I was really, really impressed with Skeletons. There's an understated beauty to almost every aspect of it - the cinematography (all those lovely framing shots of the investigators walking to their destinations), the performances (Andrew Buckley's Bennett is one of the most flat-out likeable movie characters I've seen in years, while Danish actress Paprika Steen shone as worried client Jane) and a script as humane as it is intelligent.
It's that last part that I liked best, I think - the way the film trusts the audience to have the brains to work things out for themselves. It throws us more or less straight into the investigators' lives without bothering with exposition, and when they start using professional jargon we're left to make educated guesses as to what, say, glow-chasing might be. Some points are eventually made explicit; most aren't, and that's okay - the main focus here is on the characters, and no matter how interesting their occupation might be, we like them first and foremost as people.
One final special mention goes to the soundtrack, which suggests a mood without ever being intrusive. It varies between slightly melancholic European café music and more alien, exotic Bulgarian choral themes, doing exactly as much as is necessary but never distracting us from the business at hand.
The bad
I don't really have much negative to say about this one; I thought it was a joy and a treasure, and that huge credit has to go to all involved.
That said, its intelligence might be less of a plus point if you're at the end of a long working day and just want to switch your brain off. Skeletons doesn't demand your full concentration but it certainly makes a polite request for it, and there's a certain level of intellectual effort required to keep up with what's happening. It is a film to be savoured, and if you take the time to do so, it's a profoundly rewarding experience.
The verdicts
A definite favourite within the Beaupepys house, this is a beautiful little story, beautifully told. Think of it as a less ostentatious Faberge egg, perhaps, or better still, a real egg, because what could be more simple and perfect than that?
After the last entry, I'd set today aside to review a festive movie I actually enjoy. At some point between then and now, however, Mr. Beaupepys approached, saying he'd found something interesting for us to watch and that I wouldn't have heard of it. I didn't believe him, of course, because not much slips under my radar, but on this occasion he was right: I really didn't know anything at all about How to Be a Serial Killer.
It turns out that the trick to it is self-discipline, mostly, although sticktoitiveness is also key.
Seriously, though, if a title like that doesn't pique your curiosity, are you entirely sure you're not already dead?
Shot as a mockumentary (mostly), the film is quick to introduce our two protagonists: video store clerk Bart (Matthew Gray Gubler) and customer Mike (Dameon Clarke). Having watched Bart put up with a torrent of verbal abuse from the only other customer in the store, Mike approaches the counter and asks Bart one question: If you could do absolutely anything to him, what would you do? It takes a while for Bart to respond, but his eventual answer leads Mike, the titular serial killer, to take him on as his pupil. From that point onwards, both parties embark on a personal journey that we, the viewers, are privileged to share.
The good
These days, I watch most films with my notepad in hand so I can jot down anything I want to bring up when I write about them. Normally, I land up with about a page of notes, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. This time, however, I was so engaged in the onscreen action that I didn't even manage half a page. From start to finish, How to Be a Serial Killer was an absolute blast.
Credit for this has to go to the two leads, both of whom strike just the right note for this sort of dark comedy. Dameon Clarke shines as Mike, in the showier of the two roles - hardly surprising, given that his resume includes a truly excellent turn as Handsome Jack, one of the main villains of the acclaimed Borderlands video game franchise. With his relaxed charisma and sharp social conscience, Mike is a model citizen in every respect other than the obvious, and while I never exactly rooted for him against his victims, I certainly found myself hoping he'd somehow get away with his crimes. Particularly enjoyable are the fantasy segments that act as chapter headers to the story, as Mike imagines himself a self-help guru delivering a talk to a packed theatre of acolytes. These give Clarke the chance to really cut loose, and even now, I'm giggling at the memory.
As his pupil, Matthew Gray Gubler has arguably the more difficult part to play - we expect murderers to be somehow unhinged, after all, but what could send an ordinary person wandering down that dark path? Gubler imbues Bart with a sort of puppyish enthusiasm that suggests he might have willingly followed any leader, had they just given him the attention he needed to blossom - I found myself reminded, at the unlikeliest of moments, of Emmett from the Lego Movie.
Let's not kid ourselves here: this is definitely the Clarke and Gubler show, although they're aided by writer-director Luke Ricci's riotously playful script. This is a proper, balls-out black comedy that might want us to like its main players but never, ever begs us for sympathy on their behalf, and I cannot tell you quite how refreshing I found this.
Morally speaking, the film is solid, at least until you consider that most of said morality is being dispensed by somebody who slaughters people for kicks. Not a new concept, but an interesting one, and very effective indeed when played for laughs.
The bad
As I've already stated, there's a lot to love in this one - so much, in fact, that I'm inclined to ignore such flaws as it possesses. There's no getting around it, however: structurally, How to Be a Serial Killer is a mess. Parts of it are played out in mockumentary format, parts as straight narrative and parts as fantasy sequences, but we're never given any clue as to which is which or why they're happening. Worse, the same music plays throughout, leaving me initially confused as to which thread was carrying the primary narrative and then mildly frustrated by the sheer sloppiness of it.
One more thing about the music: I thought it sounded like a bunch of cheap library tracks from the late 80s. Mr. Beaupepys thought it sounded as though it came from a cheesy porn movie. There's the possibility that we're both right here, given that my cinematic knowledge only extends so far in certain directions, but the point I'm trying to make is that a film this good deserves a far, far better soundtrack. It's a minor thing, but I honestly believe that little things like these are all that held it back from cult classic status.
Oh, and while I'm quibbling: video store clerk? In 2008? Really?
The verdict
Confident, mischievous and eminently quotable, this is one of the most enjoyable films I've seen this year - heck, in plenty of years it would have clinched the #1 shot. Flawed but forgivably so, this one deserves a far wider audience, so why not try and track it down?
I've always been inordinately attached to the 1980s, even though I was only 13 by the time they finished. They're the years whose music I return to for comfort listening, the years which spark an instant wistful nostalgia. Sure, I didn't see many movies back then (I was too small and too easily terrified), but the film posters from the video shop have stuck with me even when I wholeheartedly wished they hadn't.
Films in the 80s were a minefield to be navigated, because some tiny aspect would always linger far too long, tormenting me in the dead of night. As a consequence, there's plenty of highly-populist stuff from that period I still haven't seen. Gremlins, for instance, that's a good example. Or E.T., because the second it stopped seeming mind-fryingly scary it suddenly became nauseatingly oversentimental.
On the other hand, the so-called classic family films I have seen from the period? Ghostbusters was shockingly overrated, and while the first and third instalments of the Indiana Jones were serviceable enough, Temple of Doom remains one of the great cinematic embarrassments of our lifetime.
Films I watched at Christmas in the 80s were Grease, the Sound of Music and endless James Bond repeats, safe and serviceable and reassuring in their firm position on each side of the gender divide. Nothing liable to scare the horses here, no sir, and the only incarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge onscreen would have been the Alistair Sim one.
Scrooged, on the other hand, is very much a re-telling for its own era, with all the flash and excess this implies. It's the story of ruthless TV network executive Frank Cross (Bill Murray), producer of such festive gems as The Night The Reindeer Died. This year, Cross' star attraction is a live-action version of the Dickens classic, featuring gymnast Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim.
Cross loves Christmas, because it's the one time of year when the entire nation comes together to sit down and watch TV in unison - this is important, given that his boss Preston Rhinelander (Robert Mitchum) is warning him not to neglect the cat and dog demographic. Christmas, for him, is bank. For those around him, though, it's a time for receiving cheap monogrammed towels and running the risk of a vicious tongue-lashing and/or unemployment.
We all know how it goes from here, as Cross is visited by three spirits - David Johansen's Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as a psychotically sparkly Ghost of Christmas Present and a Ghost of Christmas Future portrayed as nothing so much but a cowled TV screen. Does Frank learn to love Christmas, does he make out with his long-lost love and does his secretary's mute son learn to speak? Sorry, people; spoilers forbid.
The good
I'd feel so much more confident commenting on this one if I had any idea what director Richard Donner was trying to achieve. In the nicest possible way, Scrooged actually works quite well as a slightly hallucinatory character study of an overly-paid man and his nervous breakdown. Heck, if I was feeling particularly charitable I could suggest it might even be an allegory for the way the manic consumerism of the 80s gradually segued into the desperately earnest goodwill of the 90s. It's loud, it's bold and it has a certain dreamlike disjointedness that could sort of hold up under non-literal interpretation. If I was feeling charitable.
Oh, and if you like the sort of Danny Elfman soundtrack that sounds like the prizewinner in a Danny Elfman Soundtrack Soundalike contest, this may just be your lucky day.
The bad
Okay, so, disclaimer time: I watched Scrooged under the influence of some sort of vague achy fluey virus thing, and at time of writing it still hasn't gone away. Loud noises, bright colours, casual violence and jump shocks, therefore, don't currently feature on my list of favourite things. The film features all of these in abundance; in fact, it features them in a rather greater abundance than might reasonably be expected for a Christmas flick - it eclipses even darker genre examples such as Bad Santa and Death to Smoochy.
Unlike these two films, too, we're never certain as to quite where the heart of Scrooged might lie. Even at his moment of conversion, Frank Cross is still violently, near-rabidly aggressive; true, he's now been touched by the spirit of Christmas, but one gets the impression that all that's happened is that his negative energies have been directed elsewhere. Granted, his girlfriend Claire seems too dopey to notice much of anything at all, but in her position I'd unquestionably still be putting in a call to the local mental health services team before running for the border. With the possible exception of secretary Grace (Alfre Woodard), nobody comes out of this one looking anything other than crass, idiotic or both.
I could probably continue ranting, but what's the point? There's plenty of better films out there, so I'd rather spend my time and attention on them instead.
The verdict
Everything I ever managed to repress about the 1980s - If anybody wants me I'll be sulking over my old favourite double bill of Biggles: Adventures in Time and Innerspace. This should tell you everything about Scrooged that you could possibly need to know.
Warning: this piece is only tangentially about the movie in the title.
A couple of weeks ago, Paul was on rotation on Film4 and I was vaguely wondering whether I should watch it again. I'd seen it shortly after it was released on DVD and been bitterly disappointed, but sometimes time can be a healer. Besides, if I had all these strong feelings about the film, wouldn't my brand new movie blog be the perfect place to examine them?
Before I start getting all overwrought on you, here's the obligatory plot synopsis.
Graeme and Clive (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost respectively) are a couple of British sci-fi geeks on the trip of a lifetime, starting out at San Diego Comic-Con and then taking a Winnebago and heading out to look at places such as Roswell and Area 52. Whilst driving across the desert late at night, they witness a car crash and stop to help the driver, who turns out to be the small grey alien Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen). It's tempting to describe what ensues as ET but with (lots) more anal sex jokes, but... no, what the hell, it really is.
The good
The animation work on Paul himself is really adorable; the character designers have seen fit to give him huge blue-grey eyes rather than the standard expressionless black jobs, and it works beautifully. Appropriately, he's the best-realized character in the film, and it isn't hard to empathize with his plight.
There's also a few lovely cameos here to be enjoyed - Jeffrey Tambor stands out as a relentlessly pragmatic sci-fi author, and Jane Lynch is just as enchanting as always as a kindly diner owner.
The bad
I keep wanting to point out that this isn't as bad a film as I'm about to imply, but... I'm honestly not sure.
Here's the deal, then: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and I have history. Along with Jessica Hynes and Mark Heap, I loved them in Spaced, the first TV programme I ever saw that felt as though it was about people like me. Then came the Cornetto Trilogy, starting with Shaun of the Dead, the first zombie movie I ever saw and an absolute masterclass in narrative structure - it didn't hurt that it was incredibly bloody funny, either. After Shaun came Hot Fuzz, which did for buddy cop movies what Shaun had done for the undead - it wasn't so perfectly constructed but the jokes were arguably better, and if it took me a little longer to warm to it, well, I re-watch it several times a year now and it still makes me laugh out loud.
Then came Paul, and I was disappointed, but I put it down to Edgar Wright not being involved and eagerly anticipated release of the final part of the Cornetto Trilogy. It took another two years for the World's End to be released, and if I'm being completely honest, I'm still not entirely convinced. Thematically, it's a mess, but I'm tackling it the same way I did Hot Fuzz, by repeatedly re-watching it until I love it. Besides, it was filmed very close to where my mother grew up, which gives the images of body-snatcher related destruction an extra level of appeal.
Anyhow, we'll set Shaun aside for the moment because it gets everything right.
Hot Fuzz got most things right, too, but a lot of that was due to Nick Frost. As gormless plod Danny Butterman, he lent the movie its heart, presenting a far more likeable figure than Simon Pegg's supercop. It's easy to dismiss Frost as the fat sidekick, but he's a great screen presence and a damned fine actor - perhaps (whisper it), a better actor than Pegg.
The fact is that in recent years, Simon Pegg has been writing himself a bunch of roles that border on being outright Mary Sues. In Hot Fuzz, he's the perfect cop who saves the day; in The World's End, he's the tormented rebel who stands up to the alien menace and eventually ends up as a living legend. In the background, meanwhile, Frost plays a sympathetic figure on the receiving end of a bunch of jokes that tend to play off his physical bulk. Pegg is undoubtedly a very talented writer, but damned if his past decade's work doesn't look like the result of a bunch of therapy sessions in the face of a mid-life crisis.
All of which finally brings me back to Paul, where Pegg plays a thoroughly decent bloke who eventually saves the alien, gets the girl and helps write an award-winning book about it all. There can't be anything wrong with that, can there?
Well, no, except for the fact that the girl's been abducted and he's made jokes over her unconscious body, and the sole thing that seems to attract him to her is that she's the only female his own age in the movie. As for saving the alien, well, that's a little more complex and has to do with narrative structure and character arcs - right through the movie, it's Frost's character who starts out suspicious and gradually grows closer to Paul; I can't help feeling that it would have been far more emotionally satisfying, therefore, if it had been his character who'd been ready to sacrifice himself for him. It's also the Frost character who's the author of the pair of them, so I'm not sure what sense it made to have Pegg's cartoonist as eventual joint winner of the literary award. It feels to me as though Pegg isn't prepared to share the narrative spotlight with anybody, which makes me feel kind of embarrassed on his behalf.
Oh, and up top, where I made the comment about anal sex jokes?As writers, Pegg and Frost evidently think these are hilarious; for long stretches of the film they pop up every five minutes, generally with rape as the implicit context. This destroyed any real sympathy I had for their characters before we even get into the female kidnapping subplot, which is unfortunate, given that apart from the alien himself, they're the only characters meant to be deserving of our affection. Dammit, I know that there's nothing your average self-identifying male geek finds quite so charming as one of his own, but give me a break here? These two seem to be up against it from absolutely everybody they meet. Every other character is a broad caricature, from the religious fundamentalists to the homophobic rednecks, never mind that our heroes are guilty of constant low-level homophobia themselves. This is a mean-spirited movie and an intolerant one, unless you're a card-carrying emotionally stunted sci-fi fanatic yourself, in which case it may be one of the most inclusive films you'll ever see.
The verdict
Paul isn't the worst film I've ever seen, not by a long chalk. There's a fundamental grubbiness about it, though, and it exhausted me, leaving me missing the good old days and wondering whether we'll ever see them return.
