Nick Frost and Simon Pegg together in Paul

A few days ago a new trailer was released for the new film starring buddies Nick Frost and Simon Pegg.  If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, the above photo is a click-through link to the video.  Paul is a movie about two buddies who encounter an alien when their road trip takes them to the outskirts of Area 51.  The alien, named Paul and voiced by Seth Rogen, asks them to help him with a life-and-death situation.  Hilarity and explosive action ensues.

I know that the trailer wasn’t the most amazing or incredibly thing you’ve ever seen, but here me out.  The trailer wasn’t all that bad, and apparently the stuff they showed at Comic-con was much better.  Borys Kit, a writer for The Hollywood Reporter, says about the new trailer: “I actually thought the first 20 seconds was made by some kid in his basement…. the scenes previewed at Comic-Con were much better than this, so perhaps Universal and Working Title are working on something better for us. Maybe?”

Seth Rogen plays Paul the alien

And for me, there’s the whole unfortunate Seth Rogen factor.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Seth Rogen and I think that in some movies he’s funny – he was perfectly acceptable in Knocked Up and Pineapple Express for example.  But to be honest, when that alien opened his mouth and Rogen’s voice came out, I grimaced.  Besides his voice just not working in an alien’s body, I don’t want him to Rogen-ize this film.  If I end up going to see this film it will be because I’m hoping it’s like Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, not because I want to see another movie like Pineapple Express.

On the plus side, the director of Paul is Greg Mottola, who also directed Superbad, Adventureland, and a season of Arrested Development. I didn’t like Superbad very much, but Adventureland was pretty good and I’ve heard nothing but praise for Arested Development (speaking of which, Jason Bateman has a role in Paul as well).  So a pretty solid director paired with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost has serious potential in my mind, despite a mediocre trailer.    Plus, Pegg and Frost wrote the screenplay, which is another bonus.

Paul doesn’t come out until January so there’s still time for more trailers and more talk.  Let’s see what happens.