Movie Review - Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015)

Kevin James is back as Paul Blart in the sequel that nobody asked for. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't mind the first film. Sure it wasn't great but I didn't flat out hate it either. Also despite his very lackluster film career so far I do like Kevin James and think he can be funny given the right material, just look at Hitch and his years on The King of Queens. Since the first film was a surprising box office success it was inevitable that a sequel would probably follow, it's just a shame that nobody thought about even trying when it came to making a second film.

This time around we pick up where the last film left off. We see Paul marry his love interest Amy (Jayma Mays) only for her to leave him just six days later. This depresses Paul but he continues on keeping his mall safe. His daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez) is tired of seeing her dad so depressed and talks him into taking a much needed vacation. She recently got an acceptance letter to college and figures they can have one last vacation together before she graduates. So they take a trip to Las Vegas where Paul must once again protect his daughter and many others from a man with an evil plan (Neal McDonough).

The first film gets some credit for at least attempting to make a somewhat competent film, whether or not they succeeded on that is a matter of opinion. Here it's like they didn't even try when it came to a script, funny jokes or just acting in general. This was obviously just a cash grab since the first one made so much money, so why not make another film? It would have been nice had anyone involved put any amount of effect into this to make it somewhat entertaining.

While I did maybe get one or two minor chuckles that's about the only positives I can really give to this bottom of the barrel film. This being another Happy Madison Production it's best not to expect much but not even the actors can add anything to help make this better. Like I mentioned before I think Kevin James can be good when given the right material, unfortunately he's never given good material and here it's no different. Even though the material is bad he at least could have tried instead of going through the whole film on autopilot. Neal McDonough is added to the cast here as the villain but he's just as bad as everyone else even though he's usually great at playing bad guys. Everyone else just coasts along with James adding nothing of value.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is lazy, unfunny and only exists because of the surprise success of the first film. Had the filmmakers even attempted to try and put any kind of entertainment value into this then maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, sadly that's not the case and we're left with an atrocity of a film.

Rating: 2/10