After the success of Shawn of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), Simon Pegg and Nick Frost team up again as buddies on a mission in Paul. They play Graeme and Clive, two alien-loving Brits on holiday in the States. After attending Comic-Con in San Diego, they plan to take a road trip to visit Area 51, Rosewell and all the famous sites of supposed extraterrestrial activity. Even if you’ve never heard of the film or seen the poster, can you guess what happens next? Yes, our heroes come across an alien, whose name gives the film its title, and go on the run from the law to protect him.

Paul starts out with the kind of perfunctory dialogue where characters converse in set phrases for the sake of hand-feeding the audience information. “Can you believe it that we’re here, on this trip that we’ve been planning since we’re kids?” Not a direct quote, I’ll admit, but pretty close to the original script. Most of the jokes in the first half hour involve suggestions that Graeme and Clive are gay, and how the alien is so human it’s funny. Then the US stereotypes come into play: the Mexican hotel worker, the violent hillbillies, the insane Christian. Jason Bateman plays a no-nonsense FBI agent on the trail of our boys, who travel in a camper van because, well, it’s kind of like a set on wheels, isn’t it? As in most road chase movies, there appears to be only one road, with no forks, where anyone can catch up with you at any given time.

In the context of Pegg and Frost’s previous work, Paul is a bit of a fiasco. The hand of Edgar Wright, who directed and co-wrote Shawn and Fuzz, is clearly absent. On the plus side, the film has a good heart. Its only crime is mediocrity. Paul himself is a well-realised creation. He works both on a technical level, as a CGI effect, and in terms of Seth Rogen’s voice acting. Still, his place is on the Cartoon Network, not as the star of a $50 million film.