Mall Cop Review
It’s a slow cooker, this one, but once it gets to a boil you’ll be laughing your butt off. It takes a little longer establishing the car than I would have liked but the latter two-thirds of the movie more than make up for a slow beginning. It’s actually much better than the previews make it look and the previews looked pretty good.
Keir O’Donnell does a fantastic job; particularly considering that his type of character has been done ad nauseam it really speaks to quality writing and performance that his character comes off as fresh and interesting.
Jayma Mays is some bizarre combination of Anna Faris and Winona Ryder (from Mr. Deeds particularly) that works but doesn’t really leave a lasting impression.
Don’t read the reviews; they’re all a bunch of hooey. People who watch movies for a living always seem to expect gold from every minute of film but they’re just a victim of their own unreasonable expectations. In you go in expecting a fun comedy then you’ll not only get what you came for but you’ll be pleasantly surprised several times.
Roger Ebert did make one great observation however. He awarded the film 3 stars for not having any adult-themed scenes and said, “it’s as slam-bang preposterous as any R-rated comedy you can name. It’s just that Paul Blart and the film’s other characters don’t feel the need to use the f-word as the building block of every sentence.” It didn’t really occur to me at the time – despite children sitting in the front row – that this really is a family film but one that doesn’t reek of it. This isn’t Disney, its family entertainment when family is defined in a broader sense than just for children. Happy Madison has really grown as a production company over the years and I increasingly am discovering their logo is a portent of quality entertainment (with some sadly notable exceptions).
Apparently Kevin James laughed off the idea of a sequel but given the film’s surprise success Sony is interested in making it happen so, go Sony!
