Paul Blart Mall Cop - review -

Lately moviegoers have been practically choked to death with Academy Award hopefuls that are invading the theaters with a vengeance, making up for the lackluster summer, however it is surprising that during a month where so many interesting films are out there, the American movie going audience chooses to make Paul Blart Mall Cop, a number one film. Maybe America is tired of the pretentious Oscar nominees, and just wants to laugh. Well they get a lot of laughs with Paul Blart.

Paul Blart Mall Cop is about an overweight, and under appreciated mall cop who takes his job just a bit too seriously. Paul goes into work everyday with the attitude that he can - and will - save the world, by protecting it's most important assest, the mall. Paul tries his best while working to avoid mall employees who, for lack of a better word, are douche bags, and make fun of him for his serious nature and his idiotic moments. This is best shown by his getting distracted by a new kiosk vendor who is so pretty, Paul forgets what he is doing and runs his segway into the back of a minivan parked for display in the mall.

What Paul does have going for him is a loving, and supporting family who are there to back him up with a nice slice of pie covered, for some reason, in peanut butter to help ease the pain of the world that seems to hate him. Paul does get his chance to prove himself to the world when his mall is overrun by thugs who plan to steal the codes from the mall stores credit card machines and make off with a nice sum of money. What they didn't count on was that Paul would turn into a hilarious version of a hero and save the day.

This film has a few good things going for it, for one it is really funny, and the acting is spot on. Kevin James is simply hilarious as the pathetic Paul Blart, and he makes you care about the lovable loser with every turn. Also going good for Paul Blart Mall Cop is the fast pace at which the movie goes, the action doesn't stop and the laughs keep coming from start to finish. The movie never takes itself too seriously, and keeps the humor mainly lowbrow.

With the good come the bad however, and Paul Blart Mall Cop has some curiously head scratching aspects to it, For one, the bad guys in this film all seem to have graduated from the school of extreme running and jumping. It looks like an ad for the X games whenever these incredibly athletic villains appear onscreen. I take this as a good and bad, because I choose to think it was a sly way of the filmmakers to poke fun at recent action films in which everyone in them seems to be gifted in the agility department. For a good example check out the horrible Transporter 3, but be warned it is terrible.

I can understand why everyone wanted to see this instead of boring Oscar contenders (i.e. Benjamin Button), and that is why Paul Blart made it to the number one slot. Of course it probably wont stay there, but it deserved to be on top for the laughs it gives.

Paul Blart wont go down in history as one of the funniest films to ever be made, and probably will be forgotten as time goes on, but it has some good laughs and is worth checking out.

Run Fatboy Run - Review- (aka Run Fatboy Run the cinematic equivalent of a Diet Coke)

I'm a huge Simon Pegg fan, I really enjoyed his BBC show "Spaced" and his films "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead" the latter of which being my favorite of his work thus far. So when I heard that he was in a new comedy "Run Fatboy Run" I was of course excited at the prospect of seeing more of Simon Pegg's humor on the big screen.
I of course ran into a few problems right away. One was that this film didn't get a wide enough release and was in and out of the theaters so quickly that I never even got a chance to see it, and second by the time I did get to see it I had already heard some pretty bad reviews of it and was getting ready for disaster.

Now, "Run Fatboy Run" isn't a bad film, in fact it's pretty good, the comedy is spot on, and you start to feel for the characters in the film right away. This is shown best with the panic attack Pegg's character Dennis endures as he is preparing to wed his pregnant girlfriend. As he runs away from the chapel, sweat pouring down his face, I could completely associate with the feeling of making a mistake and wanting to run. As the film progresses we are shown that Dennis never meant to leave his girlfriend, but was afraid of ruining her life, and this fear keeps him away from her until he sees that her new seemingly perfect boyfriend is planning on marrying her and taking her away from him forever. This is why Dennis decides to run the marathon in the film, to show her he can finish what he starts, and of course he does. Que sappy rom-com music and close the curtains on the chipper ending.

After viewing this film I sat back and digested what I just saw, it was really a standard romantic comedy with little substance and cookie cutter characters. You could replace Pegg with anyone, and get the same result. Honestly this film felt like a Hugh Grant vehicle that was given to Pegg instead. They didn't take advantage of his snarky comedic wit at all, but rather gave him stale situations in which to perform in. Sadly this film falls under the umbrella of rom-com features that if you've seen one, you've seen them all.

The shinning points from this film were the actors, including Simon Pegg, a surprisingly fit Hank Azaria, and one of my favorite British actors, Dylan Moran. With a comedic team like this in a film you would think the laughs would come much more frequently and feel more natural. Sadly they don't but few generally great comedic moments in the film had me laughing out loud.

For these reasons after watching "Run Fatboy Run" I felt that it was the cinematic equivalent of a Diet Coke, sure it has some interesting flavor and will leave you with a bittersweet aftertaste, but all the good stuff from Coke is gone and replaced by fake sugar that just makes it bland. "Run Fatboy Run" was an interesting film, just not one that I would say I would buy or honestly care about past the initial viewing.

A short break, and time to reflect.

So I took a short break from all things film for awhile and just sat back and took care of some things in my life that needed taking care of. I'm starting a new leg on a journey that I have no clue where it will take me, and I realized that one of the reasons why I didn't have much to say about movies was that I like to review them, which caused me to decide to reenter the world of reviewing films and give it one more shot.

Perhaps I just needed a break because of all the stress that I was under and I just couldn't write anything interesting due to that stress. Well now I've come a bit farther in my life and reduced some stress and am taking a fresh start with this new year.

Sadly I haven't been to the theater much lately so I'll be reviewing some films that are out on DVD for awhile until I head back to the theater.

Take Care everyone, and thanks for reading.

-Will