Kevin James is best know for his “I don’t know how but it is” hit TV show King of Queens and so I guess he decided that making the jump to the bigger screen was a good career move. It has worked SO well in the past for.. um.. well, Will Smith. I can’t think of anyone else that has pulled it off. In any case the typical action-romantic-comedy formula is here:
Attractive young girl is pined after fat adorable yet overwight guy with good looking guys in his way.
Of course here Paul is a mall security guard, single father who wants to be a real cop. Until that day comes though he’s stuck being mall security and so he tkes hi job VERY seriously . This of course leads to some typical gag moments. His vehicle of choice is a segway which is used to some small effect to emote sight gags.
Within the first 15-minutes were the following gags:
Blart collapsing during his physical thing for the cops
Blart dancing with his segway
Running over an ugly dog with segway
Running into a parked car at the mall
Fat jokes
Segway vs scooter
… yadda, yadda, yadda…
I didn’t see anything funny, not even a lip quiver, until the borrowed cell phone he has rings. Even the Blat vs Fat Lady in Victoria’s Secret didn’t do it for me. This secures the fact that TV actors shouldn’t work in movies. Paul Blart just comes off a a really creepy mall stalker with very Chris Farley-esque appeal but in a bad, non-funny way.
Black Friday is the featured date for this film because there are thousands of shoppers and millions of doallars being spent. Paul’s mall is overrun by theives looking to get thrier hands on all of the credit card numbers in the 200+ stores.
The soundtrack is pretty darn cool though – the classic rock and pop sounds did put a smile on my face or perhaps it was the fifth of jack I drank to get through the opening 15 minutes. Either way I was doing pretty good by the time we actually got past the build up, the crying, sappy stuff and to the meat of the film: something funny! I almost laughed at the Lochness Monster tramp stamp but then I recalled seeing a guy at my mall with a real one… then it just went pathetic.
At first glance the premise is just stupid.. who would knock over a mall and expect to get away? A group of bad guys take over the mall to steal credit card numbers and the only one left in the mall to help is Paul Blart: Mall Cop. He was too busy playing Rock Band in the arcade. He has his chance to get out but does the dumb hero thing and returns to try and help not knowing that his daughter is among the hostages.
There are some sweet parkour stunts that grabbed my attention as unique. Not every joke fell flat and the action was decent for a comedy. The climax is always that cathartic moment where the underdog rises to the challenge and takes out the bad guy. All in all the movie wasn’t bad – it wasn’t good either. If you have nothing else to do and you’e not into horror then go see Paul Blart.
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