Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Let’s get this out of the way: Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is nauseatingly awful. In fact, despite its big budget glean, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is downright repugnant; to such a sensational extent that if aliens invaded our planet and found out that mankind had spent $30 million on such a colossal waste of time and resources, they’d have every right to immediately enslave us all without complaint.

It’s the sort of film where you start to wonder if we peaked as a species back in the 1950s, and have now started our rapid decline that will ultimately end with cats, dogs and probably cheetahs joining together to take over the planet. The fact that I’ve already made two references to the end of civilization probably tells you a lot about my mind-set upon leaving Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. Can you blame me though? This is what watching an elderly woman being killed by a milk truck for comedy can do to a man.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is set 6 years after its original. And to put it mildly, Paul Blart has had a bad couple of years. Not only did his wife Amy (Jayma Mays) leave him six days into their marriage, but his mother was struck by the aforementioned milk truck and died in front of their house. This leaves Paul in New Jersey with his daughter Maya Blart (Raini Rodriguez), who, unbeknownst to him, has been accepted into UCLA and is planning on moving across the country to study there.

Paul Blart thinks that his luck is about to change, though, as he's just been invited to a security officers’ convention in Las Vegas, where he confidently predicts he will give the keynote speech. Not only is he wrong with that assumption, but after a huge fight, Maya reveals that she plans on moving to Los Angeles. To compound matters, Paul embarrasses himself in front of the head of security, and is then randomly attacked and mauled by a bird. Thank God, then, that Maya and her new pal Lane (David Henrie) are kidnapped by the dastardly villain Vincent (Neal McDonough), who is trying to steal a vast collection of hotel art, which gives Paul Blart a shot at redemption.

As I teased earlier all of this unfolds in a mind-numbingly torrid manner. Even Kevin James’ homely, warm, everyman shtick (which I am a fan of) seems tired, and while, admittedly, some of his quips produce a small smile, none of them come close to genuinely being funny. It’s not that Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is boring, though. In fact, in a strange way, its awfulness actually covers up its mistakes and somehow ends up making the film at least watchable. That feels like it doesn’t make sense, so I’m just going to pray that you get my gist.

Along the way you are subjected to slaps, pratfalls, bad hair, bad teeth, an electric fork, a rotten banana, tripping over a rug and being kicked by a horse jokes that you’ll squirm, wince and contemplate self-harm through. In fact, in my attempt to try and find a positive spin on Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 the film's only remotely redeemable facet is that, in a way, it’s a feminist movie.

How? Well, its final action scene boils down to two opposing women duking it out, both of which use two distinctively different styles to battle. Plus, Maya excels while captured, in comparison to Lane who pathetically fails. One character, Divina (Daniella Alonso), develops a crush on Paul because she is able to look past his repulsive qualities and see his heroic ones. Plus Amy left Paul at the start of the movie (the most sensible decision any girl can make), and I’m going to assume that Paul Blart’s mother jumped in front of the milk truck because she was thoroughly ashamed to even be associated with the character.

Other than that, everything else about Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is hideous. But you already knew that, though. In fact, you’ve probably either already dismissed Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, or had fun at the wave of amusing reviews that have been written at its expense. So if you find yourself in front of a screen where Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is playing you really only have yourself to blame.