I can’t remember a time when people getting run over by milk trucks, kicked by a horse, or riding around on segways was worthy enough to constitute all the gags in a feature-length film. Paul Blart, still riding off the hefty $140+ domestic haul from 6 years ago, thinks exactly that. The fine producers over at Happy Madison productions (Grown Ups and the first Blart adventure) thought an idea for a sequel was the correct path to take our beloved savior of the West Orange Pavilion Mall.

False.

Mall Cop 2 is one toilet gag after another, never sacrificing even the right amount of humor with the childish mentality that a movie like this promises, taking place a supposed two years after the original. I’m guessing they couldn’t get Jayma Mays to return for the sequel (why would you?) because Blart has been dumped after six days of marriage…Unfortunate. Even more unfortunate is his mother gets run over by a milk truck only a few days later.

Hilarious stuff, I know.

Basically everyone in the Blart bloodline has abandoned ship, leaving him with only his daughter, Maya, who has just been accepted to UCLA but is too afraid to tell her dad, for fear of leaving him alone. What?! The duo has been invited to a convention in Las Vegas to celebrate the accolades of security officers everywhere. Only come to find out a gang of thugs led by a recluse, Neal McDonough, is planning a heist (of course), leaving it up, yet again, to good ole’ Blart to save the day, segways and all.

Mall Cop 2 is a very hard movie to sit through, really hard. And I suggest if you have younger ones, you avoid the film all together. I can admit, I did enjoy the original outing, mainly because there was a heart with a sense of humor. Kevin James was likeable enough for me to sit through the witless Die Hard-esq jokes for younger kids (and it worked). Whatever sense of pride or dignity this film had was lost when it decided to show younger children (in a PG movie) an old lady getting run over for laughs. I’m all for physical comedy, but that, to me, felt more wrong than right.

Not to mention I never felt the characters were in any ‘real’ danger. I mean, a three-year-old toddler could foil the plan of these baddies. The direction (headed by Andy Fickman) is muffled, without a clear concise decision in the pendulum. I only ask, why couldn’t this have been the movie Sony hackers decided against releasing? Now that would have been a big favor for everyone. Grade: D