'Paul' a close encounter of the cheesy kind

The planet Earth has so many science-fiction geeks and alien conspiracy buffs that if “Paul” reaches just 5 percent of them, the comedy should hit cosmic box office receipts in record time.

I only wish that this latest collaboration between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost — who, along with director Edgar Wright, created the smartly hilarious comedies “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” — deserved to become a hit.

“Superbad” director Greg Mottola takes over for Wright in “Paul,” a film that clearly intends to deliver one big, raunchy wet kiss to the greatest sci-fi movies of the last four decades, but only succeeds in plundering them for cheap and cheesy comical references.

In fact, so many referential jokes in “Paul” have been ripped off from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial” that Steven Spielberg might have a case for theft of intellectual property. (Spielberg's voice makes a cameo in “Paul,” so that lawsuit thing is probably not going to happen.)

Seth Rogen, who in January tainted the superhero genre by turning “The Green Hornet” into slacker silliness, now points his laser of lameness at alien invasion films.

He supplies the stoner voice to the computer-animated Paul, the titular alien who chain-smokes intergalactic dope, swears like a Martin Scorsese mobster and, when he's not greenish-blue-mooning humans, turns invisible by holding his alien breath.

Since 1947 when his ship crashed in Wyoming, Paul has worked with the U.S. military on various projects.

Fearing this his life might be in danger by authorities who no longer find him useful, Paul flees in a car during the night. Because he can't drive well, he crashes.

This is how he meets Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Frost), two vacationing British sci-fi super fans who've just come from a geekerocious convention in their rumbling tank of a Winnebago.

After getting over the shock of meeting Paul (and over their fear of being probed by him), Graeme and Clive help Paul escape the military.

Meanwhile, Agent Zoil (another meticulous study in comic menace by Jason Bateman) and two rookie agents (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio) give chase under orders from a ruthless female commander's voice. (Only buzz-killing critics will reveal the identity of the voice's owner.)

“Paul,” written by Pegg and Frost, shows no mercy to fundamentalist Christians, depicted as stupid, violent, gun-toting imbeciles with zero tolerance for mind expansion.

Kristen Wiig, still the best comic weapon on “SNL,” raises the bar for “Paul” as Ruth Buggs, daughter of shotgun-toting fundamentalist Moses (John Carroll Lynch).

While sitting in the Winnebago can, Paul can't tolerate listening to Ruth's religious mantra. So he reveals himself to her and, by touching her head, brings her mind up to speed with thousands of years of evolutionary knowledge.

Now freed of her mental shackles, Ruth constantly thinks of sex and can't utter a sentence without a train wreck of R-rated words colliding into each other.

Given the pedigree of the filmmakers (and a gut-busting cameo by Jane Lynch as a truck stop waitress), “Paul” should have been a nonstop laugh riot.

At best, it offers sporadic hilarity sandwiched between strained and witless humor that suggests two more runs through the editing software might have been a good idea.

There are just so many times a film can show a man's privates being smashed before it stops being funny. Like never.

The 3-D animated “Rango” got it right by referencing various other movies with some degree of wit and subtlety.

Not “Paul.” When it struggles to emulate the touching, magical moments from Spielberg's best works, Mottola's movie is simply a“paul”ing.

It's not super bad.

But it's not “Superbad,” for sure.

<b>“Paul”</b>

★ ★

<b>Starring: </b>Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Jane Lynch

<b>Directed by: </b>Greg Mottola

<b>Other: </b>A Universal Pictures release. Rated R for drug use, language, sexual references. 104 minutes.