Review - Paul Blart Mall Cop

An overweight, mild-mannered, New Jersey mall cop who aspires to become a New jersey State Trooper is tested when his mall falls under seige by a gang of criminals. The hyper glycemic and inept single father must on his own defeat the odds and save his beloved mall from the organized criminals.


Written by Kevin James and directed by Steve Carr (Daddy Day Care and Are We Done Yet?) "Paul Blart Mall Cop" is a sophmoric comedy that is heavy of weight jokes and little on laughter. The film's best moments come from the trailer and even those do not inspire many laughs. Kevin James unveils his usual shtick in "Paul Blart Mall Cop" using heavy falls and his puppy dog eyes trying to keep the film afloat, but unless you are under 11 years old, this film will feel like a disaster from beginning to end.

"Paul Blart Mall Cop" is lite on plot or substance and feels quickly thrown together relying soely on James's physical comedy to carry the film. Kevin James who was funny as hell on "King of Queens," is over-the-top here and his comedic act feels stretched and mainly targeted for the Nickelodeon and Disney Channel generation. The jokes are cheap and his segway antics become quite cumbersome less than twenty minutes in. Even for my kids, who were excited going in to see the film, laughed the bare minimum for a comedy targeted for their age bracket. Or as they said, "We thought it would be funny?"

The characters throughout "Paul Blart Mall Cop" are dry and do little to engage the viewer into the nonsensical film. Instead you find yourself desperately waiting for the 87 minutes film to finish. The combination of the not so funny fat jokes, the over use of segway and James's unique passion for it, a uninteresting love interest, the constant falling jokes and all the lame montages of James acting like a fool just make "Paul Blart Mall Cop" a boring comedy that feels more like a straight-to-dvd title for Happy Maddison Productions. Sans my negative opinion, "Paul Blart Mall Cop" is having itself decent returns with back-to-back weekends at the top of the box office. I reccomend waiting for dvd, if not skipping it altogether.