Cinema lovers, you should thank God for Kevin James. This oft-ridiculed screen giant is here to answer a question that has plagued mankind for decades now: what would a film be like if every single person involved made as little effort as humanly possible? It’s been six years since the inexplicably successful ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop’, and our hero (Kevin James) is in a rut. His wife has left him, his mother was flattened by a milk truck (just one in a series of oddly brutal sideswipes against elderly women) and his daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez) is planning to leave home. When he gets an offer to attend a security officers’ convention in Las Vegas, Paul jumps at the chance.
Given that it comes courtesy of Adam Sandler’s production company Happy Madison – the good folks behind such comedy classics as ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’ and ‘Grown Ups 2’ – it’s no surprise that ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2’ is a lazy, witless, laugh-free experience. But even by their standards, this is a slog to sit through, so glacially paced that at times it achieves an almost zen-like level of anti-comedy. Expect the next film to consist solely of James silently piloting his Segway around in a white room for 90 minutes.