Like most people, I was excited when I heard that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were making a new film. Their earlier films including the now classic comedies Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are among the best comedies of all time.

So, it is with much regret that I have to admit that this film was not to my liking and I will explain why in a moment.

The film centres around two British sci-fi nerds attending a geek fest in Las Vegas, as well as other alien related landmarks across the Southern US states. One night they accidentally hit a car and when they investigate they meet an alien, which is too much for one of the duo, who immediately faints to his embarassment.

The alien, who goes by the name of Paul, has escaped from the government in an attempt to leave the Earth. The duo feel compelled to help him.

On their travels, they stay at a particularly over the top religous camper-van park where they meet a very over the top fundamentalist Christian girl (complete with a t-shirt showing Jesus shooting Darwin).

When the 'creationist' girl encounters Paul for the first time she sees him as a demon and following a brief argument, Paul uses one of his powers to show her that all life in the universe is, in fact, not created but evolved.

Her belief system in tatters, her first response is not one of dispair but of liberation. Finally she is allowed to curse and fornicate as she obviously always wanted.

This is probably where the film lost me. Not because the film makers were sharing their worldview but due to the complete disrespect and mis-representation of anyone who happens to believe in God.

In this film, Christians are portrayed as idiots and their beliefs dismissed as nonsense.

Although the discovery of an alien species would certainly shake the faith of a lot of Christians, the point is that as yet no such discovery has ever been made - nor is it likely to be, given that travelling even to the closest solar system to our own would take hundreds, if not thousands of years.

In my own opinion, what could have been a very funny film was ruined by taking a cheap shot at the very deeply held beliefs of people in the Southern States. That combined with continual swearing and rude references, actually made me consider leaving the cinema.

There will be people reading this who completely disagree with me and found this film to be hilarious - or that think I am totally over-reacting. To them I say this: I don't believe in aliens. I think that if you are right and that life did miraculously evolve on this planet over millions and billions of years, that the chance of it happening anywhere else is none. The only reason scientiste believe that life could evolve is because there is no other non-religous explanation.

So, in conclusion then. If you don't mind swearing, sexual jokes and you have evolved a belief that religion is just for the more primitive members of society - you'll enjoy this film. If you are like me though, you'd be better watching something else.

see also:
Hot Fuzz, Anchorman, Big Nothing, Zombieland

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photo © Universal.