Manny The Movie Guy /

They fought zombies in 2004's "Shaun of the Dead, " solved a serial-killer mystery in 2007's "Hot Fuzz, " and now, Simon Pegg ("Star Trek ") and Nick Frost ("Pirate Radio ") reunite for the UFO comedy adventure, "Paul." It's a fun intergalactic movie that will not make E.T. phone home.

Much like Steven Spielberg's 1982 masterpiece, it's quite refreshing to see a sci-fi themed movie where aliens are not the villains. On the contrary, the alien in the center of "Paul" is a pot-smoking, wisecracking flippant who is just so darn adorable!

Seth Rogen, in one of the best roles of his career, voices Paul, an extra-terrestrial ambassador to Earth and current alien resident at the infamous Area 51. He decides to escape his top-secret compound and teams up with Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Frost) to find his mother ship and return home.

Graeme and Clive are English comic book nerds who are visiting America for the annual Comic Con. Riding their RV, the two also want to visit all the sites of major extraterrestrial importance such as Area 51 and Roswell, New Mexico.

But the pair is about to have a close encounter of the third kind. On their way to the second site of their extraterrestrial journey, Graeme and Clive accidentally run into Paul. What follows next is a hilarious road trip even though it's peppered with gay jokes, toilet humor, and a philosophical debate about God versus science.

Directed by "Superbad's" Greg Motolla and written by Pegg and Frost, one of the main reasons I liked this movie is it's funny without poking fun at the whole geek culture. A lazy movie would have had a field day making lame jokes about sci-fi fans, while "Paul" puts them on a pedestal.

Even Spielberg made a funny cameo involving "E.T." We learned that our hero Paul was behind that movie, as well as other pop culture extraterrestrial milestones such as "The X-Files."

As a funny sci-fi film, "Paul" is perfect, but when it tries to be philosophical and starts ruminating on the great debate about God versus science, that's when the movie falters. Kristen Wiig as the God-fearing Ruth Buggs must suffer through an underwritten role.

Ruth, after Paul shows her his own alien memories, starts cursing like a sailor. I know the filmmakers were trying to show how Paul saved Ruth from fundamental religion. But it feels absolutely false when the light that is shown involved overly unwarranted curses. The cuss words were only put there because they were meant to be funny. They were not.

If the filmmakers were able to develop Ruth’s character and her relationship with her father, Moses Buggs (John Carroll Lynch), then the whole theme of science being ultimately superior to religion would have worked.

But "Paul" still works as a rollicking road trip adventure. Even the seemingly one-dimensional government agents, headed by Jason Bateman, have some cinematic tricks up their sleeves. Sigourney Weaver shows up near the end to make geeks scream for joy.

Pegg and Frost watched dozens of alien movies prior to writing "Paul." Their love for the genre is very evident. They both possess E.T.'s glowing heart.