If this was a spoof, it wasn’t spoofy enough. And if this was pure action escapism, I cringe at the puny imagination of whoever’s getting their kicks from “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.” Kevin James takes his average Joe act from the King of Queens straight into this movie. He stars as the overweight but fairly fit security guard at a large mall, whose hypoglycemia prevents him from joining the state troopers. Paul Blart wants to join the troopers, wants his daughter to be happy, and wants a new wife – his first wife skipped out as soon as she got citizenship. It’s not just the hypoglycemia keeping him from the life of his dreams, though. Paul Blart has an odd knack for doing – or not doing – just those things that will hold him back. He continues to eat way too much, even though he clearly has the discipline to manage his blood sugar levels for the hypoglycemia and train enough to nearly pass the state trooper physical exam. It feels like the filmmakers were pulling this movie’s “fat loser guy” obstacles out of nowhere. Apart from the stupid setbacks that ruin the film’s emotional flow, this is a pretty good action film. The stunts performed by the mall heist thieves are pretty fantastic, and Paul’s clever use of the goods in the different shops are both funny and edge-of-your-seat. Who doesn’t love seeing a stunt guy skateboard off the countertop in the first floor of the mall to come crashing through a glass elevator and attack Kevin James? Or see a fat guy setting off a scuba tank of compressed air as a missile? If you were hoping for the spoof the previews had promised, though, the action was just too good. Those scenes where Paul is wriggling behind mall fixtures to hide from bad guys? Pretty much the only ones where the movie is really making fun of action flicks. There are other funny parts, but more along the lines of what a fat guy would really do if he was alone defending a mall against thirteen thieves. Would I see this movie again? No. Did I hate it? No. It was pretty decent, but fell short of true greatness, rather like Paul Blart. And like Paul Blart, it didn’t know whether it wanted to be a spoofy comedy or an action flick. -Sharon Campbell
