As far as expectations go, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" is exactly what it appears to be. Kevin James plays the titular fat, moronic-but-lovable loser who dreams of being the hero, but finds himself stuck as a rent-a-cop in a non-descript New Jersey mall. Unfortunately, the mall is not the only thing that is non-descript about "Mall Cop." While there are laughs, there are also painful buildups to them - moments of stupidity and senselessness that leave the audience begging for something actually funny to happen.
A limited amount of laughs ensue when a group of criminals infiltrate and take over the mall Blart has sworn to himself he'd defend. While the story is of Blart rising above his limitations to do battle with forces which outman and outgun him, the inciting action leaves a bad taste in one's mouth as you try to figure out what it is the criminals are after, and what exactly their plan was all along. Their stated purpose is acquiring the codes to credit card machines in the stores, but what exactly one could do with those codes is never resolved. Director Steve Carr even threw in a few plot twists for good measure, though they are less like twists and more like wide, gentle exits whose signs you begin to see more than 10 miles down the highway.
What little resolution we do get from "Mall Cop" is exactly what you would expect: Paul saves the day, gets the girl and even manages to make the criminals look like even bigger fools than he is. Of course, the biggest fools of the film are the people who ever imagined this was a good idea or a legitimately funny execution of it. James certainly tries his best but in the sole lead, his girth just isn't enough to fill out the film. As funny as he is in other roles, such as "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," James just doesn't make the grade on his own. He needs someone else to play off of to be funny and compelling instead of just fat and sympathetic. You certainly feel sorry for him but empathy just isn't the stuff that laughs are made of.
Of course, heroes are best defined by the villains they face - and Blart's are as strange and non-descript as he is. Each of them appears to be an X Games or parkour champion - they hop and fly and jump and swing through the movie on bicycles and skateboards. While comedies rarely have the most terrifying of villains, it is impossible to take a criminal seriously while he chases the hero through a mall on a skateboard.
Blart's own method of transportation is his trusty Segway, the most prominent of what is a series of glaring product placements that can only mean the filmmakers never expected much revenue from this flop and hoped instead to make it up in corporate endorsements. That being said, the Segway is a wonderful advertisement. One of the film's few accomplishments is that audiences find themselves wishing they could whisk through the mall astride Blart atop one of the gizmos, the trusty steed to Blart's knight in bumbling armor.
To be fair, "Mall Cop" isn't completely without humor. It also does not rely solely on the most juvenile and disgusting gags that many comedies today lean on when they run out of ideas. When you leave the theater, you will have laughed and you will have sympathized with Blart. But you will also wonder why exactly you wasted money to vicariously ride a Segway and watch stupid people trudge through a mall.
You can reach this staff writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
