I just remembered that there wasn’t a blog post for the original Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Oh boy, a two-fer. Ok, let me give you my impression of Paul Blart (Kevin James): Paul Blart is an amiable nothing, a bland errant attempt at comedy. Paul Blart is what happens when monied people who enjoyed Hitch run out of ideas. Paul Blart is a collection of half-assed maudlin family moments draped in a shawl of unfunny jokes and misplaced self-satisfaction. When actor’s parents tuck them in at night, they warn of Paul Blart:
“Is he evil?”
“Worse. He’s dull. He’s a dead end. He’s *forgettable*?”
And now, he’s a bad franchise. Paul Blart is a mall cop. If there’s humor in that premise; it’s lost on me. I don’t think much of mall cops one way or another. He rides a Segway. A great deal of attention is paid to the fact that he rides a Segway. Again, I don’t think much of a Segway one way or another. There’s an entire scene of Blart showing off on a Segway in Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. At the end of it, the only impression left is, “gee, you really can’t do much on a Segway, can you?” Paul Blart gets hit by a car just so we can acknowledge this portion of the “comedy” has now officially ended. Thank you for that.
Is the joke that Paul Blart rides a Segway? That a beefy man chooses this method of chasing perps? That he’s mastered a Segway? Is it the Segway itself? That no matter how much experience you have on a Segway, it’s still stupid? I don’t really know. I don’t really care. Not a single soul in theater laughed during this scene, but it did successfully take up two or three minutes of screen time.
In Blart 2, Paul and daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez) go to Vegas as Blarton Fink here is invited to a conference on mall security. First, however, we are treated to a montage of … events – Paul’s wife left after six days of marriage, Paul’s mother got hit by a milk truck and died and Maya got into UCLA. Honestly? This all came off as a cheap ploy to earn sympathy that the lead can’t seem to generate on his own. You see, Paul Blart is the most irksome combination of humble and completely full of himself; he will readily acknowledge limitations and then turn and boast of his track record, his skill set, his responsibilities, his experience, all of which is consistently undermined for the purposes of humor, 
of course. But what do you make of the guy who talks a game he can’t back up? Is that somebody you want to root for?
How about the guy who summons Nevada state troopers because his college-age daughter decided to take a walk and didn’t answer on the first ring, but mere hours later she ignores six phone calls within a span of ten minutes without invoking any sense of terror?
Anyway, the “plot,” for lack of a better word, involves casino art theft led by Neal McDonough. Ocean’s Eleven, this is not. For a reason known only to the scriptwriter, the casino is completely bereft of police on this particular weekend, making theft impossible unless the perpetrator by freak chance owns opposable thumbs. Luckily, Paul Blart is on the job and so is his stunt double and the film editor to make Blart’s counter moves look reasonable to those who cannot pass eye tests. Seriously, never watch this movie frame-to-frame. It will sicken you. Shoot, why stop there? Don’t watch this film at all.
Mall Cop 1, we’ve already seen
On that suject, I was not too keen
Look here, Segway sport
You miss the food court
And now you have to take up my screen?
Rated PG, 94 Minutes
D: Andy Fickman
W: Kevin James & Nick Bakay
Genre: Idiocy
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Segway enthusiasts
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Self-respecting thieves
