Critic Reviews

Zephyr-light and plenty zany, Michael Duignan’s “The Paragon” serves up space-time shenanigans with a smile on its face, in a manner quaintly reminiscent of sci-fi and fantasy B-movies from a bygone era—think “Krull,” “Flash Gordon,” and “Masters of the Universe”—when stilted action sequences, preposterous plots, and kitschy costume design added up to mad spectacles of cheesy, cornball grandeur.

Even if its airy, lighthearted tone may make the film too frivolous for some, at least The Paragon knows what it is, and more importantly knows how to have fun with it.

The performances are daft enough to land, and the audacity of it all counts for something.

It’s as if Hot Fuzz was under the cultural and chemical influence of Sixties and Seventies psycho-pharmaceutical mind expansion conspiracy fantasies rather than Eighties action flicks and real ale.