By Bob Garver<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It has been over six years since the first \u201cPaul Blart,\u201d which is too long to ask people to stay loyal to such a piddling franchise. To compare it to a superior series, the time between has brought us four \u201cFast and the Furious\u201d movies, and clearly more effort goes into them. Heck, more effort goes into washing the cars. But somehow audiences are expected to retain their love of the bumbling mall cop (Kevin James). It\u2019s actually working: the film made an impressive $24 million this past weekend. I don\u2019t know whether to be disappointed with the moviegoing public for its poor taste or impressed with it for its long memory. Wait, I do know, I\u2019m definitely disappointed.<\/p>\n
The new film finds Blart traveling to Las Vegas with his teenage daughter (Raini Rodriguez) for a security guard convention. He makes a fool of himself at every turn, much to his daughter\u2019s embarrassment, but he still hopes to be selected to give the keynote speech at the convention (the venue for the speech gets downgraded, making for one of the few funny gags in the movie). If he was supposed to give the keynote speech, that seems like the kind of thing they would have worked out with him in advance, but what\u2019s common sense compared to Blart\u2019s impossibly high hopes? Meanwhile, a crew of thieves led by Vincent (Neal McDonough) is planning to steal paintings from Blart\u2019s hotel. It\u2019s up to Blart to stop them.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Early scenes depict Vincent and his team as polished and precise, but if they were any good, Blart wouldn\u2019t last a minute against them. These guys have guns, and Blart is \u2013 how can I put this? \u2013 an easy target. But these guys are so idiotic, falling into obvious non-lethal traps and losing fights they have no business losing. One scene sees a henchman encounter Blart\u2019s empty Segway scooter, with Blart hiding in a nearby cranny. The henchman shoots at the abandoned scooter. It\u2019s infuriating how stupid this is. It\u2019s not like Blart can hide on the scooter, the way he could say, slouch down in a car. He\u2019s either on the contraption or he\u2019s not. He is at many points in this movie because Segways are supposedly funny, but in this instance, he\u2019s clearly not.<\/p>\n
The movie is one joke after another that doesn\u2019t work. Not once but twice violence against old ladies is played for laughs. One instance (depicted often in the film\u2019s advertising) is actually redeemed a bit by the character\u2019s impossibly forgiving attitude, but the other is just mean and unforgiveable. Blart loses his likeability by constantly treating the hotel staff with a condescending attitude as we wait for him to inevitably be humbled. And of course, there are plenty of gags about Blart being out of shape and mall cops not being \u201creal\u201d cops, in case you had forgotten in the last thirty seconds.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how pathetic this movie is: the camera lingers on Blart as he meticulously unwraps a Hershey\u2019s Kiss. I grew up right next door to Hershey, PA, and I currently work at Hershey\u2019s Chocolate World in Times Square. I should have gone crazy for the reference to our signature product. But the scene is so plodding that I was just doing that hand gesture where I was moving my hand around in a circle, futilely trying to tell the movie to go faster (it\u2019s the same gesture Kevin James does much more successfully in his standup act where he wants a dull friend to pick up the pace on a voicemail message). It\u2019s not even that long of a movie, but with pacing like that, it takes forever. I laughed maybe once every ten or fifteen minutes during \u201cPaul Blart: Mall Cop 2,\u201d keeping it from being truly horrible, but there is very little to redeem this collection of annoyances that calls itself a comedy.<\/p>\n
One and a Half Stars out of Five.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul Blart: Mall Cop 2\u201d is rated PG for some violence. Its running time is 94 minutes.<\/p>\n