Paul Blart: Mall Cop (5/10)

When it’s an Adam Sandler production, you’ll know what to expect, right?

Yes, but not exactly.

After Hitch and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Kevin James now gets his own movie in which he co-wrote. And like what Sandler is so fond of doing, he too has his pals in his first starring endeavour.

At some point in the movie, it became Die Hard: The Comedy, but even that’s giving it too much credit. The only thing amazing about this production is that the movie was actually “wholesome”. There are no cussing involved, no jokes about bodily fluids, nothing that reminded of the usual Adam Sandler movies.

But what James relied on heavily (and pardon the pun) was throwing that big and round body of his all over and around the mall just to create some ridiculous scenes to generate laughter. There were a lot of hits-and-misses, more misses than hits as the best jokes were all shown in the trailers already. Quiet smiles are all that’s left and they may or may not be good enough for the general audience.

There were also a couple of huge gaps that are blindingly silly to have been overlooked because they made no sense whatsoever in the story’s continuity, with one involving Maya walking into the mall all alone during the lockdown. It’s like the elephant in the room that nobody talked about while making the movie.

However, the movie wasn’t a complete failure. There were some nice moments and some moments for James. Seeing him summon his inner John McClane to take command of the situation, as unbelievable as it may have been, had its own endearing qualities.

It’s a good thing James is affable and adorable, because if he wasn’t able to get the audience behind him, his bumbling and stumbling into glory would have been difficult to sit through.

Then again, this is the era of the geeks; where audiences like to see the losers and the nerds and the sized XXL dads come out on top and get the girl.