It’s funny because he’s fat. If at any time while you are watching Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and on the off-chance people around you are laughing, but you find yourself fidgeting because you don’t know what was so funny about the last scene, just remember they’re laughing it’s because the guy falling down is fat. If that doesn’t work tell yourself it’s funny because he’s fat and he’s on a Segway, and if that still doesn’t work just remember his last name is Blart. HI-larious! Unfortunately, if you are still left straight-faced it must be because you are above the age of 9-years-old and there isn’t much you can do about it because that is the audience this PG-rated cartoony effort is targeting. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not my thing.
Kevin James stars as Paul Blart, a dedicated shopping mall security guard who continually flunks out of the police training academy due to his hypoglycemic condition, which causes him to instantaneously pass out should his sugar level drop too low. Of course we are meant to laugh at this as well because fat people with hypoglycemia are even funnier when they are on a Segway and working a blue collar job.
Blart’s dedication to his work and his lonely existence — living with his mother and daughter who comes as a result of a mail-order bride who left him — is disrupted when the mall is besieged by a gang of crooks made up of skateboarders, Parkour runners and scary looking dudes out to steal some credit card numbers. Unfortunately they messed up when they kidnapped Blart’s love interest, a hair-extension proprietor, along with a few of his other mall buddies.
Blart proceeds to bumble, stumble and rumble his way to victory as he foils the crooks’ plan and saves the day in the end. All that’s missing is the famous line, “And I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids.” In this case a meddling fat mall cop, but I think you get my point.
I would lay into this film pretty good if it wasn’t for the fact it wasn’t made for me. This film washed right over me. I didn’t laugh and I didn’t cringe. I sat and stared at a movie screen knowing it had to end and once it did I would get up and leave. This is a little kid flick all the way as director Steve Carr has made little tykes his primary audience with previous film such as Are We Done Yet? and Daddy Day Care. This one is no different and simply exists to entertain the little kiddies as a fat man named Blart rolls around on a Segway doing dumb things and you are supposed to laugh as a result of it.
