Paul Blart: Mall Cop: Critic Reviews

[Kevin James] proves to be a warm leading man who grounds the movie as it morphs into a loopy heist thriller after a promising start as something entirely different: a gentle comedy of suburban underachievement.

Directed by Steve Carr, a man who knows how to put a camera in front of things, if little else, and written, sort of, by Nick Bakay and Mr. James.

The last name Blart may be the funniest thing in the movie, so that's a hint as to just how bad this shopping-center saga can be.

[Has] such obviously humble intentions that busting on it is a bit like harassing the junior high school outcast who just wants to eat his tater tots in peace.

It's unlikely that even WALL-E could bring himself to scoop up this movie and leave it on his post-apocalyptic junk heap.

Perfectly inoffensive and almost entirely unfunny.

Surprisingly winning.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop is a slapstick comedy with a hero who is a nice guy. I thought that wasn't allowed anymore.

To call this Kevin James comedy fatuous might be misinterpreted as an attack on the star's girth -- so how about inane, tepid, lazy, puerile, phony, and unfunny?

The film is completely forgettable, frequently funny and weirdly satisfying in a Jersey Loser Gets Respect kind of way.

A senseless Hollywood comedy.

Sensationally stupid, haphazardly made and qualifying as unmitigated trash by any standards, Paul Blart: Mall Cop also manages to be consistently hilarious, thanks to star Kevin James.

Give this to Paul Blart: Mall Cop: It delivers on everything it promises. Which is to say, nearly nothing.

An almost shockingly amateurish one-note-joke comedy on which the star also shares writing and producing credit.

Laughs occasionally ensue.

The thin comic appeal of Kevin James is laid on a bit thicker in Paul Blart: Mall Cop, his first solo star vehicle for the big screen.

It's surprisingly okay, in a January kind of way.

James, at his best when he lets loose, plays his character a little too straight and so loses some of the movie's comic potential.

As cheapo larks go, it's a winningly unassuming one: no stars, no big action set pieces. Just a fat guy, a near-empty mall, and a lot of really ridiculous ideas.

It's a juvenile motion picture designed primarily for a juvenile audience. But there's a little more here than one might reasonably expect.

Like the movie's sad-sack hero, this comedy never comes close to achieving its real potential.

[James] plays yet another misfit, but one who's so two-dimensional, needy (and frankly annoying) that it's difficult to root for him.

[The film] oo often settles for easy, lazy jokes, most of which revolve around either food or running into stuff.