March 2012

Paul is an alien who’s been hanging out in a military base but has decided to catch the first ride home. In pursuit of Graeme (Pegg), Clive (Frost) and Paul are federal agents. Along the way they meet Ruth a Christian Fundamentalist who comes along for the ride and Graeme finds he likes. What follows is an hilarious sci-fi comedy which ends with Paul getting home, Graeme and Clive writing a book that everyone at Comic Con assumes is fiction.

The film starts in Mexico were the two central characters are introduced. Kaulder is a US Journalist trying to get photos of the aliens for a paper he works for and Sam the daughter of the owner of the paper. Her father instructs Kaulder to get her home safely. They are forced to go through the Infected Zone to get back to the US.

What follows is a story about the development of a relationship between the two main characters. The acting is weak at best and although there are the occasional action scenes, the film is somewhat forgettable. If I’d seen the film on the TV, I certainly wouldn’t have bought it.

Traditionally one member of the Air Nation becomes the Avatar: the one that keeps balance and peace between all nations. Aang was the chosen one but ran away as he didn’t want to be the Avatar. The Avatar has mastery over all the elements which is how they must keep balance. Aang sees the suffering of the people and decides to become the Avatar. But he needs to learn how to manipulate Water, Earth and Fire.

In this film he learns to manipulate Water and Earth but the Fire nation are closing in on him. As the film comes to an end I realise that the story is to continue in another film. I tried to Google the next film but it turns out that Nickelodeon haven’t decided if they are making the next film or not yet.

What follows is a brilliant film with suspense, action and characters that all deal with the stress of life threatening situation in different ways. Eventually the father and son and a few other characters escape to a car and drive. They drive and drive until they run out of petrol. The father has a gun with four bullets but there are five people in the car.

They all feel hopeless, so he shoots the others and then in emotional state gets out of the car shouting the creatures in the mist to come for him. But at that point the army turns up to clear up their mess and eradicate the creatures. That’s how the film ends and I couldn’t help being disappointed that they’d given up hope.

There’s a lot of suspense in this film but the end of it is good. At the end the witch becomes a powerful demon trying to distory all copies of a book full of rituals to banish him and other demons. Needless to say the crusaders are successful but die in the process and the girl is free of the demon. The end of the film is good, but it does drag through the middle.