Paul Rhymes with Fart: Quality Cinema

Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)

Rating ... D (15)

I like Microsoft Songsmith. When it comes to software I would never purchase because it fails to accomplish anything useful, few are funnier than Songsmith and its wondrous ability to automatically create musical accompaniment for any given vocal track. Of course, the program's notoriety stems not from canny musicians eager to have Microsoft provide beats to bolster their voice talents but rather from ordinary citizens on the lookout for lulz, best exemplified by Songsmith's hilarious rendtions of songs like Battery or Ace of Spades.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop, however, is far from hilarious, yet eerily similar to something Songsmith could have churned out. Input a vocal track, and the song writes itself; or in this case, choose a premise, and the screenplay writes itself. What does one expect about mall security? Loser who lives with his mom? Check. Police academy dropout? Check. Fat, lonely, insecure, and a perpetual object of ridicule, most of which is blanket potshots at fat people? Let's not spoil everything!

Lazy as it is, Paul Blart's dilemma is not inherently devoid of worth or incapable of genuine understanding. Blart's background is so incredibly generic it only demands a few minutes of screen time to impart, leaving well over an hour for filmmakers to introduce dramatic conflict, creative and resourceful action, or at worst satire and maybe even topple genre constraints of the throwaway January comedy. Too bad Paul Blart only manages to offer unfunny, repetitive characterization in the form of Blart flagrantly embarrassing himself playing mall video games - it's because he's a failure, geddit? - and pointless interludes that condescend to the stereotype of the Indian geek almost as fervently as Slumdog Millionaire. Worse yet, Blart's improbable victory over parkour ruffians that besiege his mall with the intent of robbing its bank and other numerous outlets conspicuously applauds idiocy and incompetency, with a particular emphasis on how to overcome life's obstacles by running away and getting lucky things work out. Unsurprisingly, the film has the same mindset as its fictional protagonist but cannot achieve the same success. This is pretty much the result of a work propelled by autopilot. Even Microsoft Songsmith should be rolling in its shallow grave.