Lightyear

To Xfinity and Beyond

or

Just Goes to Show a Movie Can Have Too Much "Buzz"

Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans), Space Ranger, is on a mission for Star Command, when he's awakened by a signal telling him that they're nearing a planet with life on it. He goes out to explore the planet alone, leaving a team of scientists in hyper-sleep aboard his ship. Alone is what Lightyear does—he's a lone wolf and it's easier to do things himself. The thing is he's not alone: his commander on the mission, Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) has tagged along, surprising the bejeezus out of him and noting the fact that he's "narrating again," which Buzz confesses is him doing his Mission Log (which no ever listens to). It helps him focus. What doesn't help him focus is the other member of "The Away Team," a rookie—with a not-very-reassuring reddish color on his uniform (for those of us who know "sci-fi tropes")—named Featheringhamstan (Bill Hader), whose defense stance seems to be "approaching panic." That would be the way to go, actually, as the planet has a slightly spongey surface, all the better for the tentacled underground dwellers to travel through and for the above-ground spider-crabs to scramble over.

 

But, it doesn't bode too well for any sort of colonization, so after tussling with those species (that's it?), Buzz and Alisha and Feathinghair...Farthinghamster..."the rookie" get back to the ship to try and lift off the thing—noting that their ship (let's call it "The Turnip" because they do) is sinking into the ground. Buzz mans the controls, while Alisha primes the hyper-space crystal for launch. Buzz is determined to get them off the ground, but the ship crashes, leaving them stranded on the planet...and worse for Buzz, leaving the mission uncompleted.

Okay, a diversion. But not as big as the one this crew takes to become deserted, so no big deal. Let us explain (as the movie does) that what we are watching is the movie that inspired the "Buzz Lightyear" toy from the always reliable "Toy Story" series that launched Pixar Studios into feature films in 1995 (Andy, the real-live boy from the series, loved the movie and his mom bought him one). So, this is not the toy we're watching, with it's round googly-eyes and the Tim Allen voice and the purpose of comic relief, this is a science fiction adventure film (with humor), rather than a comic film about toys having existential crises. It's a different animal, only tangentially related to the Toy Story franchise. 

 

Affirmative?

 

Let's move on.

The marooned colonists call the planet T'Kani Prime and their goal is to survive, use the planet's resources and build a launch platform to get them back to Star Command, and within a year, they have built an impressive "Gerry Anderson" inspired complex, complete with a bug-zapping fence and a launch vehicle to get them into space. But, first, they must test the newly-developed hyperspace fuel that could get them home. And that's tricky. They rig up a test-vehicle and select Lightyear—the fellow who crashed the original craft stranding them in the first place—to pilot the ship.

The test flight goes well...until it doesn't. That hyperspace fuel becomes unstable and Lightyear is unable to achieve the speed necessary to go full-hyperspace (it's amazing how similar the sequence looks to the early test flight in Top Gun: Maverick), but, he's able to get the ship back to planet, even though the mission is, technically, a failure.

But, he's greeted with surprise, even shock. "Buzz! It's good to see you!" For Buzz, the trip took hours. For the colonists it took "4 years, 2 months, and 3 days." The speed that Buzz achieved on-board his ship created "time dilation" so that a moment for him, would be days or weeks for everybody else—please see Interstellar for reference. Relatively speaking, Buzz has missed the 4 years plus, the colonists have experienced and there have been changes—in technology and people. To deal with the psychological consequences, Buzz is given a robotic therapy cat, Sox (Peter Sohn), but what he's itching to do is test the new hyperfuel again to see if it has made enough improvement to get everybody home.

So, he goes up again, with the same results. The hyper-fuel becomes unstable, and when he lands another 4 years have gone by: Alisha is in a relationship, his friends are older, the colonists have made more improvements and they have a new fuel prototype.

So...it's time to test again. Buzz goes up, the hyper-fuel becomes unstable, he lands, and another 4 years have gone by. Alisha is married, pregnant, and there's a new hyper-fuel. You get the pattern.

Buzz goes up again and again, each trip adding another 4 years to everybody else's life while Buzz stays in place in a sci-fi metaphor for life passing him by. Until the day that he goes up and the hyper-fuel—now designed by Sox the robo-cat in a long gestating project—is able to maintain integrity to make the jump to hyper-space. He's done it. The mission is achievable. He's able to get everybody home.

But, no one wants to leave. The jump to hyper-space has increased the time dilation so that 22 years (14 weeks, 3 days) has elapsed. Alisha is dead, her children grown, with grandchildren and the colony has made a stable life for everyone concerned. Buzz's mission is no longer relevant. But, a new threat has emerged: Zyclops robots, led by the evil overlord Zurg (James Brolin), have occupied the planet, the colony protected by a laser shield that is constantly under attack. And, there's a "rag-tag" group of defense forces—Darby Steel (Dale Soules), Mo Morrison (the ubiquitous Taika Waititi), and Izzy Hawthorne (Keke Palmer), Alisha's granddaughter, who join up with Buzz to try and defeat the Zyclops army.

Lightyear is absolutely gorgeous, as the Pixar team of artists have (again) pushed the limits of detail and design to bring the world—and new worlds—to life. But, the film disappoints. It's not because of Evans as the voice of Lightyear (he's great, paying homage to Tim Allen's legendary work as toy-Buzz, while giving this Buzz his own tamped-down personality), and it's certainly not due to any issues having to due with a same-sex relationship which flits by in the background while Buzz Lightyear obsesses over his one true purpose. These are prickly little "dog-whistle" issues that don't even deserve an internet comment (although there are many, all deserving to be dismissed).

No. The problem is the character of Buzz Lightyear, who is—necessarily—not the same goofy, though good-hearted, character of the "Toy Story" films, but is—in all senses of the term—his own man. Almost buffoonishly so. While the rest of the world changes, he stands, alone in his own stubbornness. He's a misanthrope, a Rip Van Winkle, out of time and space. In a way he's a bit like Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (but without the virulent racism) or The Outlaw Josey Wales (without the tragedy)—he even inherits an ersatz family which he initially scorns, ala Josey. But, unlike those he doesn't have a distinctive emotional epiphany—oh, he has one when he's confronting himself (and to explain that, you'd have to see the film), but it's so weighted down with an action sequence that one might be forgiven if it escapes one's notice. 

 

And it takes so long for him to come to his conclusions that he seems a little dense to what is going on all around him. Maybe it's all that narrating....spending too much time in his own bubble helmet.

Maybe I'll revisit Lightyear in 4 years, 2 months and 3 days, and perhaps find some aspect that might make him a hero...or even someone you'd want an action hero figure of.

Because for someone whose catch-phrase is "To Infinity...and Beyond(!)" he should perhaps choose "Affinity," instead. Until then, Lightyear will just be another lackluster choice in endless rotation on Xfinity.

 
 

The Addams Family 2

Oh, *Snap* *Snap*

or

National Lampoon Addams Family Family Vacation Negation

 

I've made plain my life-long love of "The Addams Family" especially the TV-series based on the macabre New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams (not the worst source for a TV show...), which, for its short two year run, did a running black satire of family sitcoms—credit to Nat Perrin, who'd worked with the Marx Brothers and who knew "funny."

Attempts to revive the characters have been monstrously uneven whether in film, TV revivals or cartoon series. The best result was Barry Sonenfeld's film Addams Family Values, which managed to combine satire—and not sitcom-satire, real satire—and clever writing to make a wicked little movie on many levels. 

 

The same could not be said for 2019's The Addams Family, a CGI-animation version that knew exactly what it was supposed to do...but couldn't make it funny. With that title, you could immediately guess that cleverness was not going to be the spark that animated the thing to life.

 

Well, now everybody's back with...The Addams Family 2. Its biggest joke might be the "Submitted for Your Consideration" ad come Oscar-time.

Oh, technically, it's all fine. CGI being what it is these days, something (like, say, a waterfall) has to be really dodgy for it to be noticed. It's just that there is a sense of rote-ness to this, a feeling that the ambitions are so slim, the characters so known, that any effort besides the obvious isn't attempted, and in fact is avoided, lest it fall out of a PG category and betray the lack of sophistication expected in animated films. There's no shock, no envelope-pushing, and no sense of the black humor emblematic of the original Addams work in The New Yorker.

This one, like the last, focuses on Wednesday Addams (Chloë Grace Moretz), who is going through all sorts of growing pains. For her school's science project, she's developed a way to transfer tendencies from one being to another (ala Freaky Friday (both of them) and God knows how many other films and television shows)—in this case, she transfers her pet octopus' higher brain functions to her sweet but diminished Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll). Fester will, as the film progresses, take on more and more octo-tendencies, which the family doesn't really notice too much (which is odd but not funny). Wednesday's work is noticed by a mad scientist named Cyrus Strange (Bill Hader, surprisingly uneffective) who would like to know her methodology, which she refuses to divulge as "a family secret." 

This starts a plot where Strange sets up a plot to convince the Addams Family that Wednesday was switched at birth with another child (as the joke that Addams used for Wednesday was that she resembled her mother this makes little sense and they have to do extra work to get past DNA issues). As Wednesday is already feeling estranged from her family, this sets too well with her, but not the others, and Gomez suggests they go on a family road trip to see the worst of America (planned stops are Salem, Sleepy Hollow, Miami, San Antonio, The Grand Canyon, Death Valley, and...Sausalito). If one did a little more research—or just had the cajones to risk offending people—they could have found a LOT of places to go.

It's not a lot of fun—there were two lines that made me laugh: When the family sits down to dinner, Fester starts to dig in and Morticia chastises him: "Fester, wait for the children..." to which he replies "I thought we were having CHICKEN!" And at a detour to Niagara Falls, Morticia asks Wednesday "Having fun, dear?" To which she replies "I'm looking at Canada, if that answers your question..." (just the phrasing of that I liked). There's also a nice shot of Gomez being so depressed, he can't even cradle his head on his hands. "Thing" has to do it. It's at the bottom of the review, as it graphically encapsulates how I feel about the film.

The cast does a good job for all they're asked to do: Oscar Isaac is the proper amount of latin dash as Gomez, but Charlize Theron seems to be under the impression that Morticia went to Bryn Mawr. Chloë Grace Moretz has the largest role as Wednesday, but doesn't do much to sell the humor of her depressed daughter, and Nick Kroll does a fine imitation of Jackie Coogan's TV Uncle Fester, but with considerably more saliva. And why the producers thought the sonorous butler Lurch would, when he sings (!!!), have a high singing voice I have no idea, but they do it. He sings "I Will Survive" which isn't funny and makes little sense story-wise.

But, then, that passes for the best you can expect from this milquetoast Addams Family series, which is the wrong format for the wrong audience and betrays and negates the peculiar charms of Addams' original work. It should be staked, coffined, chained, and buried 12 feet deep in salted, sanctified Earth never to materialize in this incarnation again.

Tropic Thunder

Written at the time of the film's release...

And, traditionally, Saturday is "Take Out the Trash" Day...

"Nobody Goes Full-Retard" 

There's a good idea in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, a comic story about a trio of self-indulgent actors making a Viet-Nam era war film. By a Machiavellian director's conceit, they end up abandoned in a jungle pursued by drug traffickers, with nothing but their persona's to protect them.* The film tosses in more inside-Hollywood jokes than a Scary Movie installment, and some of them turn out to be actually funny. 

The trouble is the film itself is top-lined by self-indulgent actors all vying for screen-time to see how broadly they can play their parts. It's meant to be satire, and it's plenty satirical, as long as Stiller, Robert Downey, Jack Black and Tom Cruise are making fun of the Hollywood excesses of...other actors.** But one is reminded of a less-disciplined, unfunny version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in the broadness of the playing, and heavy-handedness with which its presented. Imagine Dr. Strangelove if every performance had the wing-nut intensity of George C. Scott's.

Tropic Thunder brays and screeches constantly, it's soundtrack thudding with an annoying loudness for scenes even taking place in the quiet of night. There might have been some worry on the studio's part about letting the movie breathe, or fear that the pace might slacken. All well and semi-good. But it gives the film the light and airy feeling of a train barreling into a brick wall. And the frenetic style and the frequent unintelligibility of the actors makes it a frustrating movie-going experience. 

Still, there are moments: the movie starts with a commercial and previews for films featuring the characters in the film, and they are inspired little mini-movies that skewer trailer-style marketing, as well as Hollywood hype. None too subtle, but they're mercifully short and focused. Then there's the performance of Matthew McConaughey, as the distracted agent of Stiller's Tugg Speedman, a breezy graceful performance that's funny and relaxed, but just as nuanced as the other, more aggressive performances.

 

At the opposite end of the scale is Cruise's studio-headcase Les Grossman. Made up with a balding pate and fat-suit, it's played with a giddily vulgar intensity that's pure hyper-Cruise; one wonders if Tom can play a real human being anymore, or for that, even recognize one. Still, it's quite the artery-popping performance. 

But ultimately one is left with a bunch of absurdist little off-ramps that go no where, as in the dramatic send-up typical of the testosterone/weeper when Tugg implores Lazarus, "You tell the world what happened here!"

A puzzled look passes over Lazarus' face: "What happened here?" 

"I don't know" is the reply. 

I found myself laughing at the vacuousness of the exchange, but now, in retrospect, I regret it. Maybe I was desperate for a laugh at that point.

At one point Speedman and Lazarus are discussing acting techniques, and the former brings up a disastrous attempt at a feel-good Oscar-bait film playing a disabled person. "Everybody knows you don't go full-retard," says Lazarus. "Autistic, yes. Imbecilic, yes. Full-retard, no."

And yet they made this movie, anyway.

 

* What's really funny about the script is the cribbing of the making of Apocalypse Now. Back in the early stages of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope film factory, the plan was for screenwriter John Milius and director George Lucas to make the film "guerrilla-style" by actually dropping the actors and a skeleton crew in Viet-Nam to make the movie. Today, Lucas admits the idea was crazy. Milius still imagines it as a lost opportunity for adventure.

** It's pretty obvious who is being made fun of here: Stiller makes a wicked stab at Cruise mannerisms, Downey is tweaking Russell Crowe and heavy-method actors--his Aussie Kirk Lazarus undergoes treatments to turn his skin black and never breaks character from a dialect straight out of Amos n' Andy, and Jack Black is one of the long line of overweight, drug-addicted comedians on a short fuse. And though Cruise has cause to lampoon Summer Redstone, his movie mogul is more in the Weinstein mode (and is supposedly based on Stiller's production partner Stuart Cornfeld). 

 

Wilhelm Alert: @ 2:25 into the film proper (if you can call it that)

It: Chapter Two

(Insert Witty Verb) It
or
Pennywise and Poundfoolish

Well, you can tell Halloween season is approaching because the movie-theaters are starting to get an infusion of horror movies in anticipation. I'm not a fan of the genre (although I do my time in the dungeon during the month of October), but lately, things have been mighty thin in the "Coming Soon" department, so there's no way I can avoid it. It's Horror or Nothing.

It: Chapter Two would have been seen, anyway, although I hadn't seen the "First Chapter" in the theaters. Frankly, I wasn't interested. I'd been a devotee of Stephen King's writing in his first couple decades, then around about the time of "Needful Things" and "It", I stopped reading him, mostly because I would have had to do daily bicep curls in order to read them—"It" clocks in at some 1400 pages, and if I wanted to read something encyclopedic, I'd've read the encyclopedia.*

There'd been a TV mini-series here in the States, and I turned it off after 30 minutes. Because..."clowns." My favorite books of his are still "The Dead Zone" and his novella collection "Different Seasons."

But, I did catch Andy Muschietti's Chapter One the other night on cable, and was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Screenwriters Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga (he's directing the new Bond film even as we write this) and Gary Dauberman scraped away some of the fat and sillier gristle from the book and hacked away at King's flashback structure to present the "kid version" of the "Derry Disappearances" story and made it a tough little diamond. Then Muschetti, who's Argentinian, did some remarkable casting for the kids (with an eye to who would play them as adults) and had the truly inspirational idea of putting Bill Skarsgård in the make-up as "Pennywise" the clown, in a performance that isn't camp but devious and manic and truly creepy. 

Chapter One is a good, scary movie because it concentrates on the worrisome fears that takes the innocence out of childhood and starts us on the straight path to neurosis rather than adulthood. The best part of the movie isn't the horror bits, it's the kid-bits, and the way that like-minded "Losers" can bond over the little tragedies that may mean nothing to adults (and more often than not be caused by them), but can make a kid question whether the sun should come up in the morning. Skarsgård is great and all, but one wanted to spend more time with the "Losers" because they were funny, squabbley, human...and loyal. Led by Jaeden Martell of Midnight Special and The Book of Henry, Jack Dylan Grazer from Shazam!, Finn Wolfhard, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Chosen Jacobs, Wyatt Oleff, and the remarkable Sophia Lillis.

"Here we are again in our old familiar places..."

It: Chapter One ended with serial child-kidnapper Pennywise the Clown dispatched, but with the suspicion that he would return again in 27 years, and "The Losers" promising that if he should appear again that they would have each other's back to take the "thing" down again. 

Now, in Chapter Two, it is 27 years later and the only one left in town is the one kid who couldn't fit in anywhere except for the Losers, Mike Hanlon (now played by Isaiah Mustafa, the guy who's hilarious in those "Old Spice" commercials). He lives in the library loft, working with dusty books in a town with internet, cell-phones, kindles and no library patronage. But, when he hears over the police scanner that another kid has gone missing after an already mysterious disappearance following a vicious homophobic attack at the town carnival, Mike puts out an APB for the Losers to "Come Home."

This is met with a universal reluctance by all the grown-up Losers: "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough (James McAvoy) is a horror writer (meta alert) who has a problem writing endings (real-life irony alert)—and he is told this by just about everybody including the cameoing Stephen King (HUGE real-life irony alert) and the director of his latest movie project, Peter Bogdanovich ("You said you loved the ending" "I lied."); Eddie Kaspbrack (James Ransome) has turned his hypochondriacal tendencies into a career in risk-management; irritatingly vocal Richie Tozier (Bill Hader, bless him) has become a stand-up comic; Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain) is a fashion designer who escaped her abusive father to marry an abusive husband—you can grow up but not grow out; and Ben Hascomb (Jay Ryan), the chubby "New Kid" with a crush on Bev has become a hunky architect ("shipper" alert). 

The one member of "The Losers" who opts out is Stanley Uris (Andy Bean) , who chooses suicide rather than confront the potentially deadly threat. Everybody else goes back to Derry at Mike's call and meet at a Chinese restaurant. Most of them have put those days out of their minds, but the memories—good and bad—come flooding back, challenging their wills to turn back and run away.

But, Pennywise starts to clown around and go on a psychological attacks against the Losers, they start to harden their resolve and decide to follow Mike's plan to employ a Native American ceremony to weaken and take out Pennywise, whose origins (in King's tortured explanation—I won't bother to relate it, as it's tough to type when you're rolling your eyes) have more to do with the stars than with themselves.

I prefer Chapter One to Chapter Two, probably because the first movie does the better job of avoiding the dumbest aspects of King's novel, which tries to provide a rational—relatively—explanation for what Pennywise is and why he does what he does. Frankly, King was just working too hard to bring some validity to his concept, when his readers are just happy to know there's a killer clown feeding on fear. We don't need an in-depth rationalization for why the car in "Christine" is haunted, when the audience already buys into the conceit of the supernatural and things that giggle in the night.

So, the movie follows each Loser as they track down the talismans from the days of the Derry disappearances 27 years ago: the paper boat from Billy's little brother Georgie, the postcard given to Bev by Ben (although she thinks it's from Bill), Ben's yearbook page that Bev signed when he was still "the New Kid" in Derry, the asthma inhaler from Eddie, a video game token from Richie—why these things are important to Pennywise's demise is a mystery, although, dramatically, they represent a Bonfire of Childhood Vanities. Certainly it's better than the rite of passage that King wrote of, first, in his book (and the filmmakers—wisely—left out, maybe because it's just too creepy and also potentially gut-busting). They may be important to the development of the kids turned adults, but what has that to do with Pennywise?

Was it really necessary to draw it out like this? The movie clocks in at 2 hours 45 minutes and feels bloated because of it. There are lots and lots of good "bits" scattered throughout it (or It: Chapter Two) and the performances by the cast—young and old—keep the movie interesting (Bill Hader is particularly effective both comedically and dramatically). But once the battle is taken underground to Pennywise, the movie starts to get frustratingly fussy and pretentiously woo-woo. It's not even very good action—I refrained from effecting a Monty Python accent and yelling at the screen: "Run away! Run away!" as I have less of a fear of clowns and red balloons than I do of flying buttered popcorn.

But, up until that time Muschietti does deliver on the shocks, usually by doing a standard "sting-in-the-tail" fake-out: as the person on-screen is confronted by a barrier to another room, ominous music begins to ramp up and climaxes just before the door is opened/the curtain is torn aside and they are confronted by...nothing. A moment of doubt. A moment of confusion. A moment of searching. A moment of relief. Then, they turn around and are confronted by something horrible that has been behind them the whole time. It happens enough that you learn to delay getting a firm grip on your soda by about 4 to 5 seconds. And that, friends, is a cardinal sin in a horror movie.

Still, for fans of the first movie and for fans of Stephen King, the second chapter won't disappoint—as so many King adaptations seem to do. The secret seems to be to take the main ideas of his books and burn them down to the core elements and concepts and leave his details out, because what works in his word-processor (and sent into our fearful little alligator brains) doesn't always work when projected to the screen. It takes a clever manipulator and story-teller to translate the story visually and provide the same thrills the written word does. (isn't that what all adaptations should do?). If not, then the time and money and effort are just wasted.

Muschietti, is less at fault if his Chapter Two doesn't live up to his Chapter One—he does a good job of creeping you out and clowning around, and one looks forward to what he does in the future in whatever genre he decides to pursue next.

* I haven't completely sworn him off, though: I did read his time travel novel "11/22/63," which, although a slog, was a worthwhile slog. But, I just returned his sequel to "The Shining," "Dr. Sleep," to the library (there's a movie coming out) after trying several time to "crack" it, (and developing some bursitis in my elbow) but finally giving up on it.

Paul (2011)

Paul (Greg Mottola, 2011) The team of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are an acquired taste...at least for me. Some of their stuff is iffy, marginal, borderline—good ideas stretched thin. 

Then, you get something like Paul, which I was late to, but managed to catch on cable and was ready to dismiss until it started to layer in concepts and in-jokes and do something that the two were spotty on when teamed with the brilliant Edgar Wright as their director-co-scriptwriter.

It has a lot of depth. It's a deep-dish dive into American obsession with pop-culture as witnessed by two guys across the pond who should be shaking their heads at the madness, but instead embrace it with the sense of wonder that used to be generated by such things before they got over-merchandised in the marketplace. It's also a neat little throw-back to the older films that inspired the writers

Two nerdy Brit's, Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Frost), are on a U.S. pilgrimage to the San Diego Comic-Con, driving an RV through the stark landscapes of the Southwest U.S., home of test-sites, nuclear landmarks, and fabled numbered Area's of Interest in UFO mythology. They have to deal with the denizens of the area, and one particular stranger with whom they have a close encounter of a vehicular accident kind.

This is Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), an extraterrestrial whose most recent home has been Area 51, where he has been kept under house arrest and study, advising the government on advanced technology and, in return, being kept safe, even ensuring that alien information is leaked through back-channels, just in case his brethren return to find him.

It's a comedic version of E.T. with the lost voyager—but instead of being found by a kid in the suburbs, he's found by the government agencies that want to keep him under wraps. But Paul has outlived his usefulness as a live subject; the reason he's made his escape is that he has been due for vivisection. So, despite the qualms of Clive, the two take on the little alien as a passenger, taking a side-route to San Diego to get Paul to his designated meeting place with his people.

There are, of course, complications. Paul is being sought by government agents in the form of FBI Special Agent Zoyl (Jason Bateman), who is under orders from "The Big Guy"—his female boss communicating over the radio—to track down Paul and return him to Area 51 for disposal. When he is unable to make much progress (given his disappearance from the car that he stole in his escape), she adds to other FBI agents, Haggard (Bill Hader) and O'Reilly (Joe Lo Truglio)—who are a bit hapless—to assist, although the three seem to be under different assignments, working at cross-purposes. 

And if things weren't complicated enough, an overnight stay at a trailer park gains them another passenger, Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), the one-eyed daughter of Moses Buggs (the wonderful John Carroll Lynch), the Christian fundamentalist owner of the park—she encounters Paul and the vagabonds have no choice but to take her with them, which worsens the stakes against them and adds one more dangerous element to the many people trying to track them down. Father Moses is determined to track the heathen down and shoot 'em and get his kidnapped daughter back, just like John Wayne in The Searchers or Melinda Dillon in Close Encounters.

It also adds a little nuance to that as he's completely religious and any evidence of there being extra-terrestrial life or hint that we might not have the full undivided attention of God's eye would completely toast his wafer, so to speak. But, he doesn't know about Paul. All he knows is that nerds stole his little girl and he's gonna get her back just as sure as the turnin' o' the Earth. That daughter Ruth is a bit more open to the idea of e.t.'s and wants to help him escape makes her a valuable ally (if risky) and she is rewarded for that by Paul giving her a new eye to replace the one that doesn't work.

Believe it or not, they resist playing "Amazing Grace" in the background of that scene.

There's enough laughs and something akin to warmth in the film to keep one intrigued and it manages to pay off expectations and keep surprising with what turns up and the film resolves itself. And with players like Pegg, Frost, Hader and Wiig on-board, the material will end up being served in the most creative ways possible.

Director Edgar Wright was not along for this fun little journey. In his stead, the director is Greg Mottola, who made Superbad and Adventureland, but, more importantly in my view, he was the director of the pilot for Aaron Sorkin's brilliant HBO series "The Newsroom"—one of those "perfect" examples of really good television wedded to smart ideas. Mottola did amazing work on that, juggling multiple story-lines and planes of view without "losing" any of the viewers. His work on Paul is more sedate, but there is a reverence to making sure that tribute is paid to past touchstones to make sure they have a maximum pay-off.

Plus, it's just funny as hell.

Thanks to Donavan for the suggestion