In the comedy-adventure Paul, best friends Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost) have saved for decades to take a sci-fi fan’s trip of a lifetime: a pilgrimage to America’s UFO heartland to track the legendary hot spots of extraterrestrial activity. But when a close encounter with an alien named Paul derails the plans... their dream vacation turns into a road trip that will rock their universe forever...

The soundtrack to Paul is a bit of a disappointment... actually, it's a major disappointment. Firstly it reminded me of the bad old days of the birth of soundtracks, in that the record label insists on slapping a collection of David Arnold's original score mixed with tracks by various artists on one CD. It's as though they believe this is the best way to please everyone - for some music lovers will want the artist tracks, while others will be more interested in Arnold's score.

I hardly ever enjoy soundtracks like this. For a start if I want the tracks by the artists I can either search and download the individual tracks from iTunes or buy that artist's album.

The choice of middle-of-the-road songs are almost universally known and the choices are pretty cliched - yes they're all about aliens, UFO's or some other extra terrestrial link. It's the sort of thing you'd have done yourself as a teen if you were making a cheesy alien themed mix tape. Yes, most of them are classic tracks, but then that should mean you should already own them.

David Arnold's score is all I'd purchase this for, but even that is below par for the composer and in addition you only get just over 21 minutes of his music. Obviously, being a comedy movie about an alien, there's the obligatory employment of a theremin, or theremin-esque keyboard sample. 'Passport' sounds like a left over piece of Bond music that was left lying around. And 'You Gotta Try' reminded me of Jerry Goldsmith score for Total Recall. And, finally, 'Goodbye (It's a Little Awkward)' feels like a loving tribute to John Williams's sci-fi scores.

A full CD of Arnold score would have been much more welcomed, but as it stands this tries to appeal to both soundtrack buffs, and popular track fans... which means it ends up alienating both.

3

Darren Rea