Paul Blart returns to protect you from laughing

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This article was published 18/04/2015 (4195 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Since the unexpected 2009 hit Paul Blart: Mall Cop came from Adam Sandler’s production company, it’s safe to say expectations were low. As both a star and a producer, Sandler’s approach to screen comedy in the past few years has been to throw stuff at the wall and… just keep throwing. Who cares if anything sticks?

Despite that laissez-faire approach, Paul Blart, the story of an insecure security guard who becomes a hero during a mall heist, had just enough comedic stickum to make for an amusing juvenile diversion, if not a comic masterpiece.

This sequel pretty much blows any goodwill earned by the first film. The Sandler modus operandi triumphs: Much is thrown. Hardly anything adheres.

We find our hero back at Square 1, life-wise, still lonely after being dumped by the girl (Jayma Mays) he won in the first movie.

All he has left is his daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez, still charming), and she’s too much the daddy’s girl to tell him she’s bound for the other side of the country after having been accepted to UCLA.

When Blart receives an invitation to be a guest of honour at a security convention in Las Vegas, he and Maya expect a nice getaway. But trouble is afoot at the Wynn hotel when a criminal mastermind (Neal McDonough) arrives to steal the hotel’s precious works of art.

But at least this time, Blart has a whole contingent of his fellow security guards to back him up. (If you happen to work in security, best gird yourself for an onslaught of jokes about dumb, overweight rent-a-cops.)

Kevin James is a funny guy, and there are moments interspersed here and there where you can appreciate that, such as when he’s drafted to deliver an inspirational keynote speech to his fellow mall cops, or engaging in a death battle with a bird of paradise in the hotel’s garden of contemplation.

But throughout the film, he opts for a more aggressive kind of in-your-face comedy that ill suits both him and his character. Is Blart a needy shlub or a browbeating petty tyrant? He can’t be both. And when James gets aggressive, he’s really unpleasant… a Blart of darkness, if you will.

As in the first film, Blart 2 riffs on the Die Hard formula and makes reference to a few other franchises besides. When the Segway-riding Blart has to commandeer a vehicle, it turns out to be the Batmobile of Segways. It makes for the occasional amusement.

But, wow, this movie has long stretches of comic dead spots, too. After this and The Interview, one must wonder: Doesn’t Sony test-screen movies anymore?

If you’re entering the casino that is the movie marketplace this weekend, don’t bet on Blart.

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca