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Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Hello MoFo’s! It is time once again for another installment of At the Theater with The Gunslinger45. This week I was going to go out to see Fast 7, since I was unable to so last week due to testing priorities. And that was going to be the plan until I saw this week when Paul Blart 2 was released. Now I never saw the first one back in 2009 because it looked stupid as hell. So I had no interest in seeing this film either. That was until I saw the reviews come in. Not that they were good (it is a Happy Madison production), but that they were bad. I mean unusually bad. Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com posted in her review that the film is “worse than the worst movie you ever saw”. Basically this lady is telling me that this movie is worse than the likes of The Blair Witch Project, Batman and Robin, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and two Italian animated Titanic movies. That is kind of a hard pill to swallow. But she is not alone in her feelings as the film is currently sitting at a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Could it really be that bad? I mean 0% on Rotten Tomatoes means it is in the same boat as fellow 0% on Rotten Tomatoes movies like Manos the Hands of Fate, Jaws: The Revenge, and Mac and Me. And as someone who has seen all three of these movies… yeah they are pretty bad. A 0% also means this film is supposed to be worse than the 3% ranked Battlefield Earth and the infamous Jack and Jill! Seriously, could it really be THAT bad? So I decided to investigate. But in order to do that and to get the best feel of this movie, it would be best if I had seen the original. So here is my abridged review of Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
IT STINKS!
So yeah, I am not a fan of the original, but what about the sequel? Is it as bad as the critics say? Is this worse than Pluto Nash and Speed 2: Cruise Control? Well grab your OC spray and hop on your Segway, as we observe and report all that is wrong with Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.
Paul Blart continues where he left off in the last movie, as a security officer for the local mall. But we can’t stay in New Jersey, we have to get to Vegas. Because this is a Happy Madison production, and that means they needed an excuse to make a movie someplace they wanted to go on vacation. Just like what they did with Blended and Just Go with It. So Paul gets invited to a Security Officer’s convention in a hotel casino. But a plot is required, so that same day we have art thieves led by main bad guy Vincent enter the casino as well. While they try to make off with the goods they get walked in on by Paul’s daughter, she gets taken hostage, and now Paul must save her. It is basically the same plot of the last movie (which itself is basically a cheap knock off of Die Hard) only the mall is now a casino. We see some new characters, new set pieces are used (including a Vegas show) and a new possible love interest for Paul, but the film is still pretty much the same as the last movie. But here is the $64,000 question. Is it 0% on Rotten Tomatoes bad? No. Not even close. Now don’t get me wrong this is not a good movie, but it is nowhere near the cinematic disaster that the critics are trying to say that it is.
Okay let’s look at a handful of positives. The film is well shot. The film captures the Vegas feel with very impressive set design and I can tell Kevin James is really trying in this movie. I was actually kind of shocked when Paul goes into a speech to his fellow security officers about what they do. About how they are under appreciated, mistreated, mocked, and underpaid for what they do. And as someone who has worked security before, I think he really nailed it. It was really unexpected for a movie like this. The chemistry between the cast is very good, especially between Paul and his daughter. Top it off watching Paul do his shtick around the Vegas casino was a lot more amusing here in this movie then in the original. So the movie was able to do a few things well.
But while this movie did some things well, it also did some things WAY worse than the first movie. We don’t get a minute past the opening credits before being handed some examples of TERRIBLE writing. Turns out Paul married mall vendor and last film’s love interest Amy. But I guess they could not get that actress to be in the film, so the writers had the marriage last 6 days. Apparently nausea caused by the obese is grounds for divorce in New Jersey. You think should would have known she was marrying a fat guy. And why they did not go for an annulment, I have no idea. And add insult to injury they kill off another big supporting character in Paul’s mother a few seconds later. Giving the audience a real one two punch of lazy and unoriginal writing. Not to mention it negates a lot of what little character development Paul had in the last film. And while in the last movie he was an overzealous security officer who was kind off a bumbling idiot, now he is an over protective father who is kind of an idiot. So we exchanged one bad character trait for an even worse one in this film. Top it off at least when Paul was trying to be John McClane in the first movie, at least the set up made sense there. Mall security officer is stuck in the mall with crooks, mall is surrounded by cops, and security officer stays inside to save the day. In this film where the hell is the casino security in all of this? Sure Vincent says if Blart goes to the cops he will hurt his daughter, he said he has a guy on the inside, and the thieves disguised themselves as hotel staff. But I am pretty damn sure that the high speed hotel security who literally have eyes and ears on damn near every portion of the resort are going to notice Paul acting strange in his full uniform! And while the bad guys do tamper with certain cameras by certain art pieces, that still is not going to prevent them from seeing Paul creating disturbances in the rest of the freaking casino. And they should be able to find out something like when Blart crashes one of the casino’s shows in front of hundreds of audience members! Seriously, WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE NOT SEEING THIS?!?!?!?!? And it takes FOREVER to get the part of the movie where the actual action takes place. I think I was around 50 minutes into the 90 minute movie before we even start to see Blart go into action. And the first half of the movie was just painful to sit through. And finally this movie (just like the original) is just not very funny. Jokes are forced, pay offs are nonexistent, and there is a criminal lack of Raul Duke and Dr Gonzo in this movie. Now I got more giggles out of this movie then from the last one, but a few laughs in this movie versus not laughing once in the original is not much of an upgrade.
The critics are right, this is a bad movie. But they are dead wrong on just how bad it is. This is not the worst film ever made. This is not as bad as Highlander 2, it is not as unfunny as Pluto Nash, nor is as poorly made as The Room. This is just another bad movie from a mediocre at best film company. But that being said after all is said and done about this film, I did like the movie better than the original. It was a worse film, but it was also actually somewhat entertaining. But I still could not in good conscience give this movie even a mediocre score. So I will give both Paul Blart movies the same rating.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
Hello MoFo’s! It is time once again for another installment of At the Theater with The Gunslinger45. This week I was going to go out to see Fast 7, since I was unable to so last week due to testing priorities. And that was going to be the plan until I saw this week when Paul Blart 2 was released. Now I never saw the first one back in 2009 because it looked stupid as hell. So I had no interest in seeing this film either. That was until I saw the reviews come in. Not that they were good (it is a Happy Madison production), but that they were bad. I mean unusually bad. Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com posted in her review that the film is “worse than the worst movie you ever saw”. Basically this lady is telling me that this movie is worse than the likes of The Blair Witch Project, Batman and Robin, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, and two Italian animated Titanic movies. That is kind of a hard pill to swallow. But she is not alone in her feelings as the film is currently sitting at a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Could it really be that bad? I mean 0% on Rotten Tomatoes means it is in the same boat as fellow 0% on Rotten Tomatoes movies like Manos the Hands of Fate, Jaws: The Revenge, and Mac and Me. And as someone who has seen all three of these movies… yeah they are pretty bad. A 0% also means this film is supposed to be worse than the 3% ranked Battlefield Earth and the infamous Jack and Jill! Seriously, could it really be THAT bad? So I decided to investigate. But in order to do that and to get the best feel of this movie, it would be best if I had seen the original. So here is my abridged review of Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
IT STINKS!
So yeah, I am not a fan of the original, but what about the sequel? Is it as bad as the critics say? Is this worse than Pluto Nash and Speed 2: Cruise Control? Well grab your OC spray and hop on your Segway, as we observe and report all that is wrong with Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.
Paul Blart continues where he left off in the last movie, as a security officer for the local mall. But we can’t stay in New Jersey, we have to get to Vegas. Because this is a Happy Madison production, and that means they needed an excuse to make a movie someplace they wanted to go on vacation. Just like what they did with Blended and Just Go with It. So Paul gets invited to a Security Officer’s convention in a hotel casino. But a plot is required, so that same day we have art thieves led by main bad guy Vincent enter the casino as well. While they try to make off with the goods they get walked in on by Paul’s daughter, she gets taken hostage, and now Paul must save her. It is basically the same plot of the last movie (which itself is basically a cheap knock off of Die Hard) only the mall is now a casino. We see some new characters, new set pieces are used (including a Vegas show) and a new possible love interest for Paul, but the film is still pretty much the same as the last movie. But here is the $64,000 question. Is it 0% on Rotten Tomatoes bad? No. Not even close. Now don’t get me wrong this is not a good movie, but it is nowhere near the cinematic disaster that the critics are trying to say that it is.
Okay let’s look at a handful of positives. The film is well shot. The film captures the Vegas feel with very impressive set design and I can tell Kevin James is really trying in this movie. I was actually kind of shocked when Paul goes into a speech to his fellow security officers about what they do. About how they are under appreciated, mistreated, mocked, and underpaid for what they do. And as someone who has worked security before, I think he really nailed it. It was really unexpected for a movie like this. The chemistry between the cast is very good, especially between Paul and his daughter. Top it off watching Paul do his shtick around the Vegas casino was a lot more amusing here in this movie then in the original. So the movie was able to do a few things well.
But while this movie did some things well, it also did some things WAY worse than the first movie. We don’t get a minute past the opening credits before being handed some examples of TERRIBLE writing. Turns out Paul married mall vendor and last film’s love interest Amy. But I guess they could not get that actress to be in the film, so the writers had the marriage last 6 days. Apparently nausea caused by the obese is grounds for divorce in New Jersey. You think should would have known she was marrying a fat guy. And why they did not go for an annulment, I have no idea. And add insult to injury they kill off another big supporting character in Paul’s mother a few seconds later. Giving the audience a real one two punch of lazy and unoriginal writing. Not to mention it negates a lot of what little character development Paul had in the last film. And while in the last movie he was an overzealous security officer who was kind off a bumbling idiot, now he is an over protective father who is kind of an idiot. So we exchanged one bad character trait for an even worse one in this film. Top it off at least when Paul was trying to be John McClane in the first movie, at least the set up made sense there. Mall security officer is stuck in the mall with crooks, mall is surrounded by cops, and security officer stays inside to save the day. In this film where the hell is the casino security in all of this? Sure Vincent says if Blart goes to the cops he will hurt his daughter, he said he has a guy on the inside, and the thieves disguised themselves as hotel staff. But I am pretty damn sure that the high speed hotel security who literally have eyes and ears on damn near every portion of the resort are going to notice Paul acting strange in his full uniform! And while the bad guys do tamper with certain cameras by certain art pieces, that still is not going to prevent them from seeing Paul creating disturbances in the rest of the freaking casino. And they should be able to find out something like when Blart crashes one of the casino’s shows in front of hundreds of audience members! Seriously, WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE NOT SEEING THIS?!?!?!?!? And it takes FOREVER to get the part of the movie where the actual action takes place. I think I was around 50 minutes into the 90 minute movie before we even start to see Blart go into action. And the first half of the movie was just painful to sit through. And finally this movie (just like the original) is just not very funny. Jokes are forced, pay offs are nonexistent, and there is a criminal lack of Raul Duke and Dr Gonzo in this movie. Now I got more giggles out of this movie then from the last one, but a few laughs in this movie versus not laughing once in the original is not much of an upgrade.
The critics are right, this is a bad movie. But they are dead wrong on just how bad it is. This is not the worst film ever made. This is not as bad as Highlander 2, it is not as unfunny as Pluto Nash, nor is as poorly made as The Room. This is just another bad movie from a mediocre at best film company. But that being said after all is said and done about this film, I did like the movie better than the original. It was a worse film, but it was also actually somewhat entertaining. But I still could not in good conscience give this movie even a mediocre score. So I will give both Paul Blart movies the same rating.