Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Undoubtedly the least entertaining effort from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production company since 2006’s Grandma’s Boy, Paul Blart: Mall Cop casts Kevin James as Paul Blart – a well-meaning schlub who is presented with an opportunity to establish himself as more than just a low-rent security guard after a group of armed terrorists hold his shopping center hostage. The movie, written by James and Nick Bakay, boasts an air of pervasive mediocrity that’s exacerbated by a relentless emphasis on lowest-common-denominator type jokes and gags, with the opening half hour focusing almost entirely on the various humiliations endured by the central character (eg Blart unsuccessfully attempts to ticket a senior on a rascal, Blart receives a beating from a morbidly-obese shopper, etc, etc). It’s desperate stuff that’s about as far from funny as one could possibly imagine and certainly proves effective at establishing (and perpetuating) an atmosphere of serious tedium, with James’ admittedly charismatic work essentially rendered moot by the script’s aggressively low-brow sensibilities. The movie does improve slightly once the terrorists arrive on the scene, admittedly, yet even this portion of the proceedings inevitably manages to disappoint – as director Steve Carr offers up a uniformly bland selection of villains that pose no real threat to James’ character (eg skateboarding henchmen? Really?) The end result is a hopelessly underwhelming comedy that certainly doesn’t bode well for James’ shift from TV star to big-screen funnyman, and there’s little doubt that the film’s recent success at North American multiplexes is nothing short of baffling.

*1/2 out of ****