Laughs are few in Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

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      Starring Kevin James. Rated PG.

      Kevin James is back as security officer Paul Blart, the portly Jack Webb wannabe who takes his job as a mall cop a bit too seriously. Journeyman director Andy Fickman gives James plenty of room to swagger around spouting lines like: “I didn’t choose security. Security chose me!”

      Blart keeps his cheesy mustache neatly trimmed and can stop his trusty Segway on a dime. But underneath his spotless uniform, he’s actually a quivering marshmallow whose world is falling apart.

      As our story begins, his hot new wife has left him shortly after their wedding because, as her doctor explains, “She can’t stop throwing up.” His beloved mother (veteran Shirley Knight, in a three-second cameo) has just been killed by a runaway truck. About the only person left in Blart’s life is his college-aged daughter, Maya (Raini Rodriguez), so when he gets the chance to attend a mall-cop convention in Las Vegas, he takes her along for moral support.

      Blart should be in his element. The convention is packed with like-minded colleagues who wear their paunches and bad comb-overs like badges of honour. But he’s clinging a little too tightly to his daughter. As for Maya, she feels too guilty to tell Dad the big news: she’s been accepted to UCLA, which means she’ll be leaving home.

      But family tension is forgotten when Maya is kidnapped. Blart does his best to spring into action, battling everything from low blood sugar to attack by savage peacock. Unfortunately, none of this has the redeeming quality of actually making us laugh. When a gorgeous fellow security officer (Daniella Alonso) begins to fall for Blart’s polyester charms, any shred of credibility goes out the window.

      James does his best to be endearing. But, like a lot of actors who came up through the sitcom ranks, his solo shtick wears noticeably thin after half an hour. Packed with fat jokes and halfhearted slapstick, this one runs out of gas long before it should.

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