YMMV / Paul

• Anvilicious: The "religion is wrong" aspect can reach very preachy levels.
• Cliché Storm: Much of the movie's plot and dialogue feels very by-the-numbers. The numerous shout-outs to other films probably don't help in this respect.
• Confirmation Bias: Ruth and her father's religious fundamentalism, so very much. Also the film overall in its anti-religon message, especially the Insane Troll Logic of Paul's existence conflicting with religion...somehow.
• Fanon Welding: Though Edgar Wright's name and the titular ice cream brand are nowhere to be found, some fans consider Paul to be an unofficial installment in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy due to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost playing the leads, the film being mostly a light-hearted comedy before going into darker comedy in the final act, and there being a mild amount of bloodshed. Even moreso when The World's End came out due to Paul being a road-trip movie with a challenging goal which fits the tension and high stakes of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, while World's End is just a group of guys doing a pub crawl while dealing with ridiculously fragile alien robots, with some fans even declaring Paul to be a more worthy alien-based final entry in the trilogy.
• Fridge Brilliance: Why did Zoil stick with two clearly incompetent agents and give them as little information as possible? Not a firm grasp of the Idiot Ball or Villain Ball, but because he was deliberately trying to sabotage the Big Guy's efforts to track down Paul.
• He's Just Hiding: Despite Haggard having a Bait the Dog arc, his Punch-Clock Villain moments make some fans hope he gets out of his car before it explodes after going over a cliff, especially after O‘Reilly also survives a near death experience.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • At one point, Graeme is wearing a shirt for Invincible. Seth Rogen, who voices the titular alien here, would go on to voice Allen the Alien in the TV series adaptation of that comic.
  • During the end credits, Graeme says he thought Ruth was coming to Comic-Con as Wonder Woman. Ruth's actress, Kristen Wiig, would go on to be cast as Wonder Woman's archenemy, the Cheetah, in Wonder Woman 1984.
  • This film is not connected to the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, but two years later a film in that series would release where Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's characters stumbled across aliens.
• One-Scene Wonder: The Big Guy's pilot isn't even credited, but is decently memorable for the brief scene where he and the alien UFO pilot are talking shop in the background after the climax.
• Retroactive Recognition: O'Reilly is Charles Boyle.
• Squick:
  • Graeme's bullet wound closing up.
  • Not to mention Paul's chest opening out as he's healing him. You can see his chest spasming and blood running out...
  • Clive mentions that the last time he had sex before meeting Paul was with a woman cosplaying as an Ewok.
    "Clive likes boning space bears!"
  • Our Man In Black makes his first appearance and, whilst looking serious and professional, performs the The Ketchup Test on a puddle of liquid on the ground... remember when Clive pissed himself when he passed out earlier?
• Tear Jerker: Admit it, you teared up a little at Graeme's Disney Death.
• Ugly Cute: Paul is basically a Grey with puppy dog eyes and a myriad of facial expressions due to his personality.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Paul himself, especially. He's so well-rendered it's easy to forget he's a special effect at all.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: If you saw this film in theaters, the number of little kids watching the film would go beyond the number of fingers on your hands. Clearly, parents saw the wide-eyed, cute looking alien in the commercials and, despite the R rating, thought that it's a completely kid-friendly movie. There were even some cases where the trailers for this film would play before kids' movies.

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