Attention, Paul Blart: Nobody's laughing

Hello, Paul Blart, our old friend. We've come to laugh at you again, as the fat jokes just keep coming.

Instead, the theater echoes with the sounds of silence.

Sorry, when a movie falls this flat, when every gag has a just-grind-through-it quality, the mind wanders to old Simon & Garfunkel tunes.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is even more of a kids' movie than the 2009 original - slapstick built around a clueless, plump lump. It's harmless, with Kevin James trying to find a place among the cinema's pratfall kings. Watch the way he takes a tumble, sells a creaky gag that has Blart bouncing off a store window, or overdoes his cop slide across the slick floor. Check out the effort he puts into making Blart only graceful on a Segway, his mall patrol vehicle of choice.

It's a shame none of this stuff ever rises above a slight grin.

Blart has married and had a quicky divorce since Mall Cop 1, and here he and zaftig daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez of TV's Austin & Ally) visit Las Vegas for a "fake cop" convention at the Wynn Resort.

Neal McDonough is the villain leading a team of crooks in an attempted art heist. The mocked Blart springs into action after Maya and this cute valet she's flirting with are taken hostage.

The lines, many written by James himself, flop. ("Security is a mission, not an inter-mission.") James tries too hard, punching bad dialogue as if he has never told a joke. And the studio didn't spend a dime giving him anybody funny to play off - Ana Gasteyer, Loni Love, and Gary Valentine? Nothing funny to say or do here.

Sequels are cynical by nature, but this one, with its casino product placement ad, is purely a paycheck. James may not deserve better, but the kids they're pitching this to do.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

* (Out of four stars)

Directed by Andy Fickman. With Kevin James, Raini Rodriguez, Neal McDonough. Distributed by Sony/Columbia.

Running time: 1 hour, 34 mins.

Parents' guide: PG (some violence).

Playing at: Area theaters.

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