PAUL: I’ve Been Waiting for This Since Mac and Me

Paul (2011) – Directed by Greg Mottola – Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, Joe Lo Truglio, John Carroll Lynch, Jane Lynch, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, Sigourney Weaver, Jeffrey Tambor, and Steven Spielberg.

Much like Super 8, PAUL is a love letter to Steven Spielberg, but unlike the J.J. Abrams film, PAUL isn’t a celebration of Spielberg’s films as much as it is a celebration of what the films meant to fans.

We see this in evidence right from the start as Greame (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) make their first pilgrimage to Sand Diego Comic-Con. These guys are fans and I appreciate how they’re fans without an over-fetishization of geek or nerd culture, which is a trend that has pretty much run its course. They are who they are, definitely fans but also definitely themselves, too. Clive is a writer and Graeme is an artist, and they’re not just visiting from England to experience SDCC, but to take a road trip through some alien hot spots in the American West.

We stay in San Diego just long enough to establish that these two guys love their sci-fi, and then they’re off in an RV. At a roadside diner where Jane Lynch works, Graeme laughs along with two redneck stereotypes (David Koechner and Jesse Plemons), who decide to interpret his joviality as hostile instead of friendly. When Clive comes out of the bathroom, the two rednecks make fun of Graeme and Clive for being gay.

Which they’re not, but which is also a recurring joke in the film.

Graeme and Clive hightail it out of there and accidentally put a dent in the rednecks’ truck on their way out of the parking lot. Later on that night, as they stop to take some pictures at another sight on their stop, they see some approaching headlights and wrongly assume its the rednecks. Fleeing the scene, they are quickly overcome by the headlights, and as the car whizzes past, the car wrecks and the boys stop to have a look.

The rednecks are the worst part of the film because they are never anything but their base stereotypes. Many of PAUL’s conflict are derived from pitting different social groups against each other: nerds, rednecks, the deeply religious, the bad ass Mr. FBI Man, but only the rednecks never reveal themselves to be something more. Luckily, despite their introduction as the film’s first antagonist, they are not major players in the movie.

At the scene of the accident, the two Brits meet Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), who solicits their help in him getting home. Grame proves himself the cooler customer, more willing to accept an actual alien in their presence, while Clive passes out and pees himself. From there on, we’ve got a combo buddy comedy/road trip with Paul the alien as the third wheel tag-along.

Paul is designed to be a mid-sized alien with very human tendencies: he likes to smoke and drink and swear, and there are times where this gets a bit much. There is some over-reliance on the comedy coming simply from Paul doing these things, as if an alien who swears is, in and of itself, inherently funny. Maybe if this film had come out in 1987, this would have worked, but now it already feels kinda stale – if Paul is intended to be funny, he needs to be funny irregardless of being a little grey alien with big blue eyes.

The most interesting aspect of this film is simply watching two different comedy camps come together. Up front is the Pegg and Frost duo as PAUL’s main stars and it’s co-writers, and in less-obvious roles are part of the Arrested Development family in the persons of director Greg Mottola, and actors Jason Bateman and Jeffrey Tambor. It’s a winning combo, with the deadpan-jerk humor of Bateman and Tambor blending nicely with the disbelieving-nice guys style of Pegg and Frost.

There is a third wheel here and that’s the inclusion of Seth Rogen as the voice of Paul. Mottola has a history with the Apatow/Rogen family, too, as he also directed Superbad and was a director on Undeclared, so Rogen isn’t completely alone here. Personally, I’ve had my fill of Rogen’s Big Loud Idiot type, and even though Paul doesn’t entirely fit that mold, Rogen’s voice keeps pushing the character in that direction. It’s hard to think of Paul as either intelligent or likable with that awful voice coming out of his mouth, but it’s certainly not enough to sink the character or the film.

Graeme, Clive, and Paul pull the RV into an RV park for the night, where they meet Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a one-eyed, over-protected daughter of a religious zealot. PAUL takes all kinds of shots at God and religion and Paul becomes the (celebrated) serpent in the Garden. When Ruth starts espousing her faith (and it’s not like she says, “I like Jesus,” because she actually says, “The world is 4,000 years old and God created it in six days.”) Paul loses his marbles and starts debating her from inside the RV’s bathroom, even though he’s supposed to be hiding. Paul ends up getting Ruth to turn away from her faith, in part because he shows her his entire life story through a mind link and in part because he cures her dead eye.

I have some issues with this – not as a Christian, because even though I was raised Catholic I don’t consider myself aligned with any religion these days, but just as a matter of logic. Simply because the Bible does not take aliens into account does not mean that their existence disproves the concepts of God and Creationism. I suppose the point here is that because Ruth is such a strict Christian that Paul’s ability to show her that the world is more than 4,000 years old becomes the crack that breaks the dam. It’s simplistic, but it fits the film’s general theme, which is that the group dynamic is more important than an individual’s personal issues.

I really like how PAUL picks up people as the film moves along. First, the road trip is about Graeme and Clive’s adventure, then it’s folds in the plot in getting Paul home, and then when Ruth is added, it folds in a subplot of self-discovery. It’s a really good script that’s only sidelined (like most comedies) by a weak joke here and there. The nice thing, however, is that PAUL is every bit as interested in telling a story as it is in simply telling jokes.

There’s plenty of nods to Spielberg (and the director’s voice even makes an appearance), but the funniest reference is when Clive (who feels like he’s blown it by passing out and peeing himself when he first met Paul) is trying to explain his actions to Paul and he says, “I’ve been waiting for this since Mac and Me and I feel like I’ve blown it!”

Mac and Me.

It’s a great reference because Mac and Me is widely recognized as a cheap E.T. knock off, yet that doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who like the movie, which furthers strengthens the idea that Graeme and Clive are just regular fans.

It’s the combination of sci-fi love, camaraderie, and jokes that work better because they’re amusing rather than because they’re laugh out loud funny. I mean, how can you not like a movie that sees Clive referring to Paul as Short Round? PAUL hits all the right notes for a good time. It’s not hysterical (except for Jason Bateman, who’s very, very funny here), but it is constantly amusing.

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY: I Can’t Smile Without You

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) – Directed by Guillermo del Toro – Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, John Hurt, and Seth MacFarlane.

It is easy to get lost in the visual splendor that is HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, because there are few films that look this gorgeous. What makes THE GOLDEN ARMY the rarest of cinematic treats is that I cannot think of any movie off the top of my head that so wonderfully blends two unique visual styles from two unique visual giants together so seamlessly and sumptuously.

Unlike the first HELLBOY and Sin City, which always strike me as Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez doing their best to bring Mike Mignola’s and Frank Miller’s comics to life, or 300 and Watchmen, where Zack Snyder’s visual style overwhelms Miller’s and Dave Gibbons’ respective styles, THE GOLDEN ARMY takes Mignola’s characters, runs them through del Toro’s universe, and both visions stay strong.

THE GOLDEN ARMY puts a smile on my face from start to finish. The film opens at Christmastime in 1955, where a pre-teen Hellboy begs his adopted father Trevor Bruttenholm (John Hurt) to tell him a story before bed, and after a bit of hemming and hawing, he relates the story of an ancient war between humans and magical creatures. The magical creatures create the Golden Army, an unstoppable force but King Balor is horrified by what he’s done, and so forges a truce with humans. His son, Prince Nuada, is not a fan of this political move, and so he goes into exile. This whole sequence is modeled to look like the coolest Tool video ever made, as it looks like its all done with wooden puppets.

Cut to the present and things have advanced since the original HELLBOY film. Hellboy and Liz (Ron Perlman and Selma Blair) are living together inside the BPRD facility in New Jersey but Liz is feeling like she needs some space. Which is complicated by the fact that she’s pregnant. She’s not telling Hellboy because she doesn’t even realize it until after Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) senses it and tells her.

Wisely, del Toro makes the camaraderie between Hellboy, Liz, and Abe is the centerpiece of the film. While they all clearly respect and love one another, there’s all of these dual partnerships that exclude the third: Liz and Abe know Liz is pregnant but Hellboy doesn’t, Liz and Hellboy are romantically involved but Abe has no one, and Hellboy and Abe are best buddies while Liz doesn’t have a female friend anywhere. The best scene that displays this is Hellboy and Abe getting drunk together as they commiserate about women.

Abe is completely inexperienced with the opposite sex and Hellboy acts like the expert he very much is not. It’s great acting from Perlman and Jones, and when they combine to sing Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Live Without You” and get drunk on Tecate Light, they create some genuine movie magic. The song properly serves as the emotional core of the film, as our three leads all face decisions about just what they’d do without their most cherished loved one. I don’t like to tell you what to think, but if you can watch this scene and not have a smile break out across your face and don’t join in with the sing-a-long, well … you’re probably in need of your heart growing three sizes someday.

The film uses these third wheel pieces to create some tension in the narrative to work alongside the main narrative, which is the return of Prince Nuada (Luke Goss). Nuada wants to reclaim the three pieces of the magical crown that control the Golden Army, so he steals the human’s piece at an auction and then kills his dad. This gives him two pieces and his twin sister Nuala (Anna Walton), who goes into hiding until she runs into Abe and Hellboy, who bring her under BPRD protection.

The narrative is solid, and the visuals are every bit as great. There’s gorgeous sets everywhere, including the Troll’s Market, the magical beings lair beneath a bridge, and the underground city where the Golden Army waits. What’s really impressive is that these sets are rundown and kinda ugly and del Toro and his crew manage to make them look totally amazing. Part of this comes from contrasting the dull settings with bright and colorful characters, but there’s also the sheer awesomeness of the designs, which trump their conditions.

Abe ends up falling in love with Nuala, which Nuada uses to his advantage when he breaks into BPRD. It’s a quick romance, but then it’s not like they have room to stretch out Abe and Nuala’s courtship. Instead, both Abe and Nuala’s loneliness helps to create their mutual attraction, and they come off as two young people falling in love for the first time.

I was a little disappointed to see that Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) was back being a bit of an administrative prick, but the scene where he complains to Abe about Hellboy hating him is well constructed (there’s all sorts of chaos going on behind them and they just carry on a normal chat) and his anger at Hellboy wanting to let the world know of his existence is well-founded. Manning and Hellboy’s inability to get along, and Hellboy’s decision to definitively out his existence to the public during an investigation into Nuada’s destruction of the auction, forces Washington to send in Johann Strauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane and no, Strauss does not sound like Brian or Peter or Ted), a gaseous entity living inside what looks like an old diver’s suit. Strauss is a bit regimented, but he eventually joins along with our three leads to disobey orders and go after Nuada directly.

During this final sequence, Liz chooses to save Hellboy even though it means the eventual destruction of the world, and Abe does the same, giving Nuada the final piece of the magical crown that allows the Prince to raise the army out of its slumber. The final battle against the Golden Army is pretty darn great (and the largeness of the golden robots at the end of the film contrasts nicely with the battle against the small tooth fairies near the start of the film), and the army is made of what looks like large, fat, golden steampunk robots that can self-repair themselves. Del Toro uses color as well as any non-animation director working right now, and his color palette is continually changing but always rich, and making this final battle against golden robots with red energy works beautifully.

The film tries to generate some traction with the idea that Hellboy is seduced by Nuada’s urging to join the magical creatures against the humans, but it doesn’t really work, with one exception – when Hellboy kills the giant green Elemental (a gorgeously rendered creature), you feel his confusion and pain over his duty conflicting with what he feels is right. Not that it’s okay that the Elemental is flailing about the city, but the Elemental didn’t choose to be there – Nuada put him there, and Hellboy is rightly conflicted over killed the last of its kind. That scene works, but Nuada’s clumsy attempts at seduction don’t because we know that Hellboy’s heart could never seek the destruction of one side over the other.

Genocidal maniacs don’t love Barry Manilow AND Tecate Light. Fact.

Well. Probably.

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY is a rich, gorgeous, fun cinematic achievement. Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Guillermo del Toro, and all the crew who contributed to the look of the film turn in high quality work, and together they produce a really fantastic movie. Now, if only they could get a third film made …

HELLBOY: There Are Things That Go Bump in the Night

Hellboy (2004) – Directed by Guillermo del Toro – Starring Ron Perlman, Rupert Evans, Doug Jones, Selma Blair, Karel Roden, Ladislav Beran, John Hurt, Bridget Hodson, and Jeffrey Tambor.

During yesterday’s review of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, I lamented the fact that as much as I loved the movie, I didn’t really enjoy watching it anymore. As important as that film was in the development of the cinematic superhero genre and as much as I celebrated the movie, we’ve seen so many origin stories at this point (not to mention the origin of Spider-Man told and re-told countless times across all sorts of media), that the movie doesn’t do a whole lot for me anymore.

Such is not the case with Guillermo del Toro’s HELLBOY, which still stands as something fresh, unique, and unlike anything else. Visually, nothing comes close to the look of HELLBOY, as del Toro, Rick Baker, Mike Mignola, and the rest of the production staff use a rich, saturated palette and Lovecraftian monsters to deliver a film that still looks and feels completely amazing.

HELLBOY opens in Scotland in 1944 with the United States military stopping a Nazi plot to bring the Ogdru Jahad to Earth. The military, led by their young occult adviser Trevor Bruttenholm stop Grigori Rasputin (Karel Roden) and his top assassin Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beran), but not before a red-skinned boy with a honking big right hand and a tail comes through.

This opening sequence quickly and gorgeously sets up the film’s plot and provides Hellboy’s origin without dragging us into an elongated sequence about how he was just a boy from another dimension who got sucked through space and time and blah blah blah. It’s a gorgeously shot sequence; del Toro has a really wonderful ability to create a world that is obviously constructed and yet feels completely real, too, because it’s so consistently rendered. I love the treatment of the military here, too. These soldiers have little time for Bruttenholm’s ideas, but when they’re confronted with a reality they can’t ignore – the arrival of Hellboy – they embrace the challenge. There’s something completely heartwarming about seeing all of these military guys exchange doubt and confusion for big smiles and open hearts, and it’s one of the moments that makes me love this film.

Cutting to the present, we get introduced to the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) through new recruit John Myers (Rupert Evans). I really don’t see the need to walk us through this world – hey look, there’s a fish-looking guy in a tank who likes to read, and over here is a big red demon who likes cats – because John doesn’t really add a whole lot to the film that we couldn’t get without him. There’s a weak subplot with John romancing Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) that’s worth having around just for the great scene where Hellboy spies on them from a rooftop, taking love advice from a nine-year old kid, but after that … it doesn’t bring much. I think the film would have been better served killing John around this point in the film than keeping him around.

Rasputin has been resurrected by Kroenen and his Nazi lover Ilsa Haupstein (Bridget Hodson), and he unleashes a bunch of Lovercraft monsters on the populace. Del Toro does a fantastic job setting the action sequences in different, visually appealing places: a museum in the city, an underwater subway sequence, and an underground structure in Rasputin’s mausoleum. What combines them is that they (along with BRPD HQ) are all soaked in different colors. The museum is a rich yellow, the underwater sequence is murky green, the BRPD HQ has Bruttenholm’s (John Hurt) library on one end and Hellboy’s sloppy “apartment” on the other, and there’s plenty of ice and snow in Russia. HELLBOY is one of those films that’s just a visual joy to look at from start to finish.

Ron Perlman is fantastic as the titular character, delivering one of his very best performances. Hellboy is a big, tough dude with a soft heart, and Perlman beautifully walks that line. In battle, he wants to go in alone, while in his personal life, he desperately wants to not be alone – so long as he gets to be with Liz. He might be rough and strange looking, but he’s got that weakness for Baby Ruth candy bars that makes him come off as completely real. When he tries to tell Liz that he understands why she would want to be with Myers instead, and wishes he could do something about his face, all of the personal pain and pathos that we need to see is laid bare before us. Where Raimi’s Spider-Man kept beating us over the head with the melodrama, del Toro deploys it with much greater skill in HELLBOY.

John Hurt, Doug Jones, and Selma Blair are all good, but Jeffrey Tambor steals the show as an FBI agent forced to publicly dismiss all of the reported sightings of Hellboy and disavow any knowledge of the BPRD. Tambor’s Tom Manning is a jerk, but after Kroenen kills Broom (Bruttenholm’s nickname), Manning personally leads the expedition to hunt Kroenen and Rasputin down. And even though his attitude is of the, “let’s tie up loose ends” variety more than revenge, the guy still goes along. When he and Hellboy are forced to help each other defeat Kroenen, Manning finally sees Hellboy for who he is and not what he forces Manning to have to do. There’s no heart-to-heart moment where Manning apologizes, either. These are both men who have difficulty expressing their emotions, and so instead of a thank you, Manning acknowledgment of his own past sins against Hellboy and appreciation for saving his life come in a dismissive, “What are you doing?” as Hellboy tries and fails to light his cigar with a lighter. “You’ve got to use matches,” Manning insists, lighting one for him, “otherwise you lose the flavor.”

Hellboy tries it and nods his appreciation back, and then goes off to hunt more monsters. It’s really good stuff and a clever bit of character development that the film employs.

HELLBOY takes its time to get where it’s going, moving at a steady pace to build to the big CGI climax. Rasputin wants to use Hellboy to open the portal to bring the Ogdru Jahad to Earth and has stolen Liz’s soul to get him to comply. He starts to do it and then stops himself, stops Rasputin, and gets Liz back.

Every time I watch this movie I get sucked back in to the story and the visuals, and taken with the characters. Everyone here has flaws and they’re very real, very understandable flaws. When Abe (Doug Jones) is underwater with the Lovecraft hounds, you can see the fear on his face and in his actions. It’s just a great film to watch, full of great characters to hang out with for a few hours.

I love HELLBOY.