Kevin James’ varied CV has thus far featured a wealth of memorable creations.

Bumbling fat-guy in King of Queens, bumbling fat-guy in Hitch and bumbling fat-guy in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry – there hasn’t been such a startling auteur with this much range since John Candy.

And like Candy (which James clearly does), Kevin manages to make what is an otherwise down on his luck cardboard cutout into a likeable chubby action hero – Paul Blart. This is silly fun, the kind that makes children laugh until they’re rolling around dribbling, while leaving adults to exclaim ‘meh’.

Forgettable escapism is on the cards, something that doesn’t feel bogged down by issues – apparently it became trendy in the mid-noughties to try and give audience diabetes through sugary, issue and moral-laced comedies.

Fortunately, the only person suffering from such a  disease is the title character himself. Moustached, well-fed and full of beans, Blart is the type of character that isn’t trying to do anything new except being likeable and amusing.

Credit to James, who has filled a hole missing from cinema with ease. He brings the chubby, funny goon back to the screen, and does so without the sentimental streak that burdens the genre.

When the doughnuts are down and Blart becomes a 20-stone Bruce Willis, he works his way through a mall of criminals, taking them down one by one. The film kicks up a gear when the action starts – fortunately for Blart, the bad guys manage to make it easy to root for the good guy. Rather than menacing super-criminals, they’re simply a bunch of skater boys jumping around, riding BMX’s and looking more like the type of dribbling sociopaths you’d normally find normally loitering outside Tesco. They seem frightened to actually fire any guns, preferring to just shout and run away from a fight with a guy who couldn’t swing his arms without getting heart failure.

Still, there had to be a concession made for believability, and further adding to this is the deer-in-headlights love interest Amy. It isn’t Douglas/Zeta-Jones bad and there is enough easy charm that they get away with it.

Really, you could write this review without seeing the actual film; an enjoyable comedy filled with tubby pratfalls and larger than life characters. It isn’t exactly David Lynch but is actually just a slice of good ol’ fun!

The extras are fairly robust (I will stop with the fat puns eventually), commentary with the director and James, deleted scenes, behind the scenes and plenty of back-slapping action to boot. A nice package, unfortunately featuring the most annoying DVD menu of all time but overall making a breezy lightweight DVD.

3/5

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The week of the Oscar nominations usually sees a huge box office boost for the nominated films, and that’s true this week.

Because Paul Blart: Mall Cop is still the weekend box office number one, reflecting its position as the movie with the most amount of Oscar nominations in histo… oh, hang on.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop didn’t get any Oscar nominations, did it? And yet it’s still way above every single nominated movie in the US weekend box office. Something tells us we’re going to see a poignant three-hour opus about Brad Pitt on a Segway next year.

So Paul Blart: Mall Cop is number one at the weekend box office? So what? Michael Sheen‘s made history by getting Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans to the number two spot.

Many actors these days alternate between starring in movies that pay well and movies that will nourish their artistic soul. And that’s exactly what Michael Sheen has done – not only is he the star of Frost/Nixon – one of this year’s best-reviewed, most critically-acclaimed dramas – but he’s also the star of Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans, the superfluous second sequel to an already-rubbish film that’s still managed to outperform the likes of Slumdog Millionaire at the weekend box office this week.

However, it’s a little-known fact that Michael Sheen actually appeared in Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans because he thought he’d win a Best Actor Oscar for it, and agreed to star in Frost/Nixon because he was positive that it was going to become bigger than Star Wars and inspire countless young boys to stage their own carefully-researched probing political interviews at home using their highly collectable and wildly popular David Frost and Richard Nixon action figures. Michael Sheen is an idiot. Here’s this week’s weekend box office top five…

1 - Paul Blart: Mall Cop (By exceeding weekend box office expectations so dramatically, a sequel to Paul Blart: Mall Cop looks to be inevitable. Hopefully it’ll be set in the world of human resources. Make a hilarious slapstick movie out of that, funny fat man) $21,500,000

2 - Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans (We shouldn’t joke about Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans. Our lycans rose a couple of years ago. Agony, it was. We were on antibiotics for a month, and the loss of bladder control was embarrassing to say the least) $20,700,000

3 - Gran Torino (We’ll admit that when we first heard about Gran Torino we thought it’d be a movie remake of Gran Turismo. For all we know it might be – if there’s a videogame released in the next 12 months involving a haggard old racing driver who also enjoys punching Asian teenagers in the mouth, we’ll have been completely vindicated) $16,000,000

4 - Hotel For Dogs (Marley & Me topped the weekend box office, Beverly Hills Chihuahua topped the weekend box office, Hotel For Dogs could only get to number four. We hope the bottom isn’t falling out of the dog movie market, because that means our script for a movie musical entitled Doggy Stockbrockers: It’s Woofcession will never get made. Arses) $12,360,000

5 – Slumdog Millionaire (See? Slumdog Millionaire – the critcally-acclaimed cartoon about some dogs in a slum – can only just about break the weekend box office top five. Woofcession’s doomed. Doomed!) $10,550,000

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Weekend Box Office - Box Office Mojo

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We should probably point out now that we haven’t seen the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop yet. But if “Blart! BLAART!” isn’t a catchphrase in it, we’ll be mighty ticked off.

That’s right, despite its woeful critical reception, Paul Blart: Mall Cop is the number one movie at this week’s weekend box office. Incidentally, Slumdog Millionaire – the movie that did so gloriously at last week’s Golden Globes – only managed to scrape to 10th place.

So the message is perfectly clear – the feelgood movie of the year is literally a tenth as good as a film about a fat bloke falling off a Segway. We’re thrilled.

Prepare yourself for a rare moment of hecklerspray sincerity - Kevin James is our hero. We’re being serious here. Yes, King Of Queens was the worst kind of mediocre sitcom – and I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry was unwatchable tosh – but based on what we’ve seen of this week’s number one movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Kevin James deserves every single award going.

Really, we’re not joking. Watch the Paul Blart: Mall Cop trailer. The man is Buster Keaton. If there was an Oscar for Best Flinging Yourself Against An Impenetrable Glass Door, then Paul Blart: Mall Cop would be the new Citizen Kane. We wish there was an Oscar for that, by the way. We also wish we weren’t as drunk as we currently are, but life’s hard. Here’s this week’s US weekend box office top five:

1 - Paul Blart: Mall Cop (While we’re on this weird – and frankly worrying – pro Kevin James campaign, IMDb says that Kevin James doesn’t have any films in the pipeline, and that terrifies us. We want Kevin James to SUCCEED! We want Kevin James to BE OUR FRIEND! We are DRUNK!) $33,800,000

2 - Gran Torino (It’s genuinely upsetting that Gran Torino looks set to be Clint Eastwood‘s last film as an actor. Because, honestly, without Clyde The Orang-utan, latter-stage Clint Eastwood movies are like watching Ernie Wise after Eric Morecombe died. What we’re trying to say, we suppose, is this – Clint: more monkeys, please) $22,235,000

3 - My Bloody Valentine 3D (An incredible film – never before has Kevin Shields seemed so realistic.) $21,900,000

4 - Notorious (We’re glad that Notorious didn’t crack the weekend box office top three, because a movie that glamorises the rise of a violent, drug-dealing rapper isn’t very aspirational. We’d have much preferred a biopic about Holiday Rap stars MC Miker G and DJ Sven. That would have taught the kids something worth learning. Get on it, Hollywood) $21,500,000

5 - Hotel For Dogs (Why isn’t Hotel For Dogs the weekend box office’s number one movie? It’s a film about a hotel for dogs, for crying out loud. Perhaps it’s only number five in the weekend box office charts because it opened on a limited number of screens to build Oscar buzz. Yes, that’s definitely it) $17,707,000

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Weekend Box Office – Box Office Mojo