Paul (2011)

[**1/2 stars / *****]

Aliens crash landing on earth...correction, aliens appearing exclusively in the United States of America, people with a exceptionally good talent for yelling out mothers and sisters running about, until a leader gives a motivational talk on universal brotherhood (keep those nuclear weapons aside, for now) and an unlikely hero packing aliens to their own outer-space hell with a good smack to their obviously better evolved buttocks...

Hollywood film makers have drained every lemon drop cosmos squeeze out of hostile aliens and end of the world scenarios in countless expensive action dramas. 

E.T. call home 
So Paul, a goofy science-fiction road trip comedy comes as a relief, kind of. 

Despite the irrelevance, abuses barfing up as comedy, there is good Area 51 friendly air blowing, thanks to the Simon Pegg - Nick Frost duo making light of playing geeks who are visiting all the famous UFO US hot spots and end up encountering a on-the-run, smooth talking, hitchhiker-like-shorts-wearing, cigarette-spouting, healing-powered alien named Paul (Seth Rogen-voiced) instead. 

Alien movie lovers rejoice 
Pegg and Frost are exactly the guys you would want to hang out with a friendly alien who needs to get back to his planet far far away, with a little help from his dude friends. 

If you love every kind of alien movie out there, you will like the fun references, especially the suggestion that Steven Spielberg consulted Paul on alien authenticity for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and gasp at the lovely short climax cameo by an alien-movie regular.

Paul movie review  
Director Greg Mottola keeps Paul running with its spoofy, reference-filled vibes, as it goes overboard and raunchy, like so many other commercial Hollywood movies featuring sexually gross jokes, just for the heck of it. 

It takes the earthly comedy talents of Pegg, Frost, Rogen and Kristen Wiig to suit up for this just-a-cut-above-average one-time ride. 

The Close Encounters of a Third Kind (1977) replication finale sums up Paul, it doesn't tickle out the laughs but keeps the smiles coming.     

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

[**** stars / *****] 

Afterthoughts rush through my mind tunnel after catching up with Mission: Impossible – Fallout on the big screen. 

That there are three kinds of people in the world. 

One with pot bellies like us, watching the latest MI movie with wide open eyes, the second kind who are into fitness, and the third of which there is only one on the planet, a 56-year-old man called Tom Cruise. 

Why does the MI franchise still work, 22 years since the first film came out? Tom Cruise and his "I will do it myself" stunts. Cruise fills his role with an old-world action hero passion. Watch him running, this is not an ageing man, this is a man beating himself to the finish line.   

Breathless, Exciting Action! 
Mission: Impossible – Fallout would have been a dull affair, but for Cruise hopping off buildings (breathtaking), a swift, impressive escape on a motorbike (scintillating), the stunning skydive sequence (aha!) and a nervy helicopter ride finale (superb!).

But it is the punch-pounding, gritty bathroom fight - Cruise, Henry Cavill vs Liang Yang that is among the film's most seat-gripping moments. 

The action feels real and dangerous. No special effects, please! At least not until the culminating cliff sequence.  

The rest of it, though not always convincing, is clever. 

It's like they put the best of previous MI movie plots into a mixer... and still managed to come up with decent stuff. The face mask element (a much-repeated MI plot element) is given a nice sharp twist here. Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson are all good. 

But without Tom Cruise, there is no MI.

P.S: Inspired by Cruise, I am doing my own stunts from now on too. The first one is called, "Jumping out of bed and landing on the floor, at the first sound of the alarm clock." 

Do not try this at home. 

Wish me luck!