Along with trying to see as many films in the smaller, art-house theaters this year, I have also made it a goal to see as few Christian-themed films as possible. There has already been Old Fashioned and Do You Believe? this year, but I know that if I tried seeing them all, more than half of them would make the brunt of my “Worst of the Year” list, and who could blame me? Many of these films are incompetently made, horrendously executed, and seem to remain content at casting all non-Christians (or their definition of non-Christian) in negative lights. However, after hearing about Little Boy, and the sheer star-power it attained, I knew I had to break my vow and see what the fuss was.

To begin things on a positive note, the performances are for the most part strong, the best examples being Tom Wilkinson as Father Oliver, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Hashimoto, each of whom have some decent chemistry together. Jakob Salvati, the boy playing Pepper, is more of a mixed bag. He’s actually not bad at all emotionally, but he has a lisp to him that makes him nearly unintelligible, and it really highlights his lack of experience. Emily Watson’s character is almost entirely pointless. We never really see her be a mother to Pepper, and all we ever really see her do is cry when the audience needs to be reminded that the boy’s dad is at war and it’s supposed to be sad. Kevin James probably gives the most respectable performance of his career, but his character is also given very little to do other than hit on Watson.

What cannot be forgiven however is the story, which pulls so many strings to spin its narrative such as to steer clear of any problems that would otherwise make the film contradict itself, often on grossly massive proportions. During a game of poker, Hashimoto confronts Oliver over what would happen to his faith if his dad indeed didn’t return home safely as Oliver promised he would, but such a complex and thought-provoking dilemma is quickly dashed in favor of a list of self-serving “faith-building” chores Pepper becomes engages himself in. Speaking of, one of the biggest elements of the film is the budding relationship between Pepper and Hashimoto, and the theme for this subplot is quite clear: don’t be racist. Not all Japanese people are your enemy. That’s all well and good, but when the film tries to imply that the boy’s faith and thus, the will of God, caused the bombings of Hiroshima (with the bomb aptly named “Little Boy”) and you don’t mention any moral repercussions of the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives you ended, especially after you’ve preached to spread empathy towards them, then any positivity you’ve tried to promote goes straight into the toilet. What’s even more offensive (if that’s even possible), is the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too ending that is almost too unbelievable to conceive, yet alone see and hear on screen. It was a surprisingly good and effective ending that was blindsided by the gooiest of schmaltz in the last five minutes. It completely undermines any hard life experiences that Pepper could have gone through and strengthen him further as a character, but instead opts for a resolution as mushy and rotten as a brown banana.

And that’s the sheer tragedy of Little Boy. This could have easily been a very thought-provoking movie about faith during very trying times, especially at such an age and size as Pepper is. At almost every turn however, the film stays comfortably in the easy lane, refusing to solve any real problems and magically cure them with clichés and “faith.” Unfortunately, both for the film and the audience, life does not come and go that easily, and God does not work in such plain and simple ways, and the closer that the people who make films like this come to understanding this, the better we’ll all be.

Final Verdict:

Time for some honesty. I have only walked out of one movie in my twenty-three years of life, and that was the first Paul Blart: Mall Cop. After fifteen minutes, I could no longer sit and watch a pathetic, overweight slob mope about how much his life sucks and try and solve it with a bottomless helping of starch, sugar, and fat, no matter how close the actual plot was coming (though I did manage to sit through Matthew Buck’s Bad Movie Beatdown of it). Well, it seems that because of the overwhelming return Paul Blart received at the box office in January of 2009, it finally “warranted” a sequel, and my life could not be more miserable for it.

Unlike the other films I have reviewed this year, not a single one had not one redeeming factor like Paul Blart 2 did. Kevin James is proving himself to be one of Hollywood’s most disposable actors. His entire job throughout the movie is to eat, mug, fall, spaz-out, and act like an all-around douche to nearly everyone. The film’s efforts seem to be locked in on trying to make this terminally spiteful character into someone we’re supposed to love and root for, but not necessarily by giving him any wit, grace, or charm, but by forcing the other characters to find admiration (and attraction, in the horrifying case of a clueless hotel GM) in him or cranking the musical cues to instruct the audience how they are supposed to feel. The rest of the characters are just awful too, with Maya, Blart’s daughter, too stupid to call the police when the crushingly generic villains try force her to hole up in her bathroom, and the other mall cops being stereotypes of stereotypes, much like the Brooklyn cop who’s introduced wearing a white wife-beater and several gold necklaces (one of which is a crucifix).

Every little thing about this movie’s story is just wrong, from the college acceptance letter that Maya nonsensically brings to force tension between her and her dad, to the pointless and ham-fisted gags and scenes that keep the film just hobbling along. Just like Get Hard, this film’s story is completely secondary to the inane “fyat” and “derp-derp” jokes that comprise this film. However, unlike Get Hard, which did have a couple of chuckles and a performance of measurable charisma from Kevin Hart, Paul Blart 2 cannot seem to afford such luxuries (probably because they blew the rest of the budget on lavish Las Vegas set-pieces).

And I mean it, this film did not utter so much as a chuckle out of me. One of the opening gags is Paul’s mom being run over by a truck and dying (no god-damned joke), so you can clearly tell the level of comedic creativity this film has to offer. Other “jokes” involve a useless fight with a crane that serves not a single thing to the rest of the movie, a vibrating fork that Paul must use because he eats too fast (haha, geddit? Because he’s fyat!), and the same exact crashing-into-glass-door-and-unrealistically-doing-one full-roll-backwards-in-recoil and inability-to-slide-behind-obstacle gags from the first one. The amount of stupidity going on to prolong the film is also staggering, one scene involving a baddie disguised as a security officer about to shoot Paul in a heavily-crowded hotel lobby, only for him to put his gun obviously behind his back when actual security arrives, who show no concern for his look of worry and suspicious arm placement (or to the people actually behind him who could clearly see his gun with the illegal silencer on it). It’s this level of lack of creativity and intelligence that slogs throughout the rest of the movie.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is completely worthless on all accounts. It’s not well made, it’s completely unfunny, and is just a pathetic embarrassment for all those involved. I’ve seen funnier Lars von Trier films. Of course, it doesn’t seem to be pathetic to James or his fellows at Happy Madison, who are more-than-likely laughing all the way to the bank and will continue to do so with each film they make and each sucker they squeeze $10 out of to see it (and unfortunately enjoy it). Too bad the joke’s only on them and myself alone.

Final Verdict:

I’m pretty much asking for it at this point. Of course, there was no question that this movie was going to be horrendous based on the trailer. The million-dollar question is how bad is it with all the “hi-larious” content that they couldn’t fit in the trailer.

To say that the mere involvement of Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara in this film is devastating is an understatement. Hot Pursuit took two very talented performers, one an Academy Award winner and the other a four-time Emmy nominee, and essentially turned them into cartoons. It’s the only accurate description I can give for these two, because their performances and characters are so nonsensical, that I feel like I’m watching a really bad episode of Family Guy (even on its standards today).

Reese is a by-the-book cop that’s so over-the-top and so on-the-nose, that the entirety of her lines feel like she’s reading every other character their Miranda rights (which makes sense, as I was feeling incarcerated the entire time). The film tries to make her appear really observant (like, BBC’s Sherlock observant), yet she can’t even remember or identify a suspect’s simple tattoo, even after she draws it in her handy-dandy notebook (she can’t see it when it’s upside down (thee’s tho thilly!), among other blaring moments of unfathomable idiocy. Sofia is just as big an offender, her Columbian accent so overblown and thick that it literally makes three-quarters of her dialogue incomprehensible. Along with being a materialistic shrew (because how else would a rich character present herself?), she’s also incredibly whiny and obnoxious, and when these two exchange verbal blows, it sounds like nails dragging along a jettan video.

Nothing about this film is subtle, and the comedy is constantly made victim because of it. Over two-dozen times (yes, I counted), there is a joke making fun of Reese’s height, because if it wasn’t funny the first time, they’ll be howling after the twentieth (for a refund). And the film is also under the fatal assumption that if the film isn’t as wacky and screwball as inhumanly possible on a constant basis, that the audience will be bored (though the two whooping female hyenas in the row ahead of me only served to prove them wrong). A truck somehow rams Reese and Vergara’s parked getaway car, which sprays cocaine which Reese sniffs and gets high off of as they look for new clothes, as well as an agonizingly forced fake-lesbo scene that devolves into a dismembered finger gag. The film is unpredictable with its “humor,” only because you wouldn’t think it would be stupid enough to cross that line.

Oh, and when the film tries to be topical or serious, it’s probably the most pathetic parts of the film. The man involved in the lesbian scene has to mention that he’s a Christian and doesn’t support homosexuality (because I’m certain Hot Pursuit is really going to really move the SCOTUS into reaching their decision come June). The attempts at “character development” are rushed and uninteresting, mainly because we know it’s going to give way to yet another half-assed joke, and that these characters are far too annoying to like anyway. And what cliché-bloated buddy-cop movie would this be without the obligatory love interest? Yes, Reese “falls in love” with a paroled convict that they pick completely shatters her black-and-white worldview of criminals, and he’s just so won over by her immensely frightening neuroticism. Hey, if the script says so, why the hell not?

Hot Pursuit is a film that will completely taint your opinions of the talented women involved. I may not ever want to watch Modern Family after this, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch Wild, Election, or Walk the Line again without a thousand-yard stare. The two only have the minimal amount of chemistry together, and it’s far too feeble to carry the rest of this film’s dead weight, which describes this film perfectly: lifeless and a burden.

Final Verdict:

By next Thursday night, I’ll hopefully get to see Welcome to Me and this Iranian film called About Elly, but if one or neither happens, I guarantee you all a sole review of Mad Max: Fury Road that night.