Kevin James plays Paul Blart, a shy, lovelorn, down-on-his-luck police academy failure turned uber-enthusiastic, over-achieving mall security officer.  Things start to look up for Paul when he meets kiosk entrepreneur Amy (Jayma Mays), until Blart stumbles upon an elaborate bank robbery at the mall.

Given the built-in punch lines from its plot, starring Kevin James, AND having been produced by Adam Sandler, Paul Blart: Mall Cop has all the right pieces in place to be ROTFLOL.  It isn’t.  It definitely has its moments.  And it was certainly entertaining.  But I found myself feeling more empathetic for Blart than I found myself laughing at him.  In short, Mall Cop is neither serious enough to be a true character story, nor funny enough to be an over the top slapstick comedy.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed all 91 of its minutes and look forward to watching it mindlessly, over and over again, on HBO in a few months.

Also, Mall Cop was filmed, at least in part, at the Burlington Mall up in my old stomping grounds.  It was like walkin’ down memory lane!