When 2009’s Paul Blart: Mall Cop became a surprise hit, it made a sequel inevitable. I didn’t expect it to take six years for Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 to arrive, though, but that’s what happened. Perhaps Kevin James wanted to enjoy his newfound status as a top-billed comedic actor before he returned to the tried and true.

After the highs of Blart’s (James) adventures in the first film, the mall security officer finds himself on hard times. His new wife Amy (Jayma Mays) leaves him after less than a week of marriage, and two years later, his devoted mother (Shirley Knight) gets killed by a milk truck.

At least one positive finally arises when Blart gets invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas for the Security Officers Trade Association Expo and Award Ceremony. Blart packs up his teen daughter Maya (Raini Rodriguez) and heads to Sin City for a fun time.

However, events transpire to add complications. A gang of criminals led by Vincent (Neal McDonough) plans a heist, and Maya accidentally overhears details of their scheme. The baddies kidnap Maya, so Blart needs to come to the rescue.

When the first Cop became a hit, I couldn’t figure out why, as I thought the movie was anonymous and forgettable. The film failed to prompt any reaction from me at all – it offered a mild diversion that provoked no laughs or emotion.

Now that I’ve viewed Cop 2, the bland mediocrity of the first movie starts to look pretty good. Whatever general positives that may have emerged in the 2009 flick go into the toilet during the actively grating Cop 2.

At his core, James can be a likable, engaging performer, so it surprises me that he seems so irritating in Cop 2. As depicted here, Blart comes across as arrogant, pushy and full of himself. Maybe that’s the character as established in the prior movie, but I don’t remember him that way. The sequel’s Blart becomes unlikable and annoying. He’s not a fun lout – he’s a self-absorbed douche.

It doesn’t help that the movie starts with such odd narrative choices. The first film struck a chord with audiences, and one assumes they came to care about Blart.

In the face of that, why do the filmmakers think it’s a good idea to have his wife dump him and kill his mother? Perhaps they feel we’ll empathize more with Blart when we see him brought so low, but this tactic flops. The divorce/death scenes just open the story on a depressing note, and James’s aggressively pompous performance makes matters worse.

Cop 2 also suffers from its lack of a reason to exist. At least the first movie offered a semi-creative premise, but the sequel just works to rehash that tale in a new setting. It throws out a slew of bad comedic set pieces without coherence or logic as it plods along its 94 minutes.

Cop 2 does manage one remarkable feat: it makes me look back fondly on the prior film. As mediocre as that effort was, it worked much better than the consistently witless and irritating Cop 2. Nothing about this clunker succeeds.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The transfer satisfied.

Sharpness worked well. No softness emerged, so the flick offered crisp, accurate visuals. No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and edge haloes failed to appear. Source flaws also remained absent.

Colors looked good. The image took on a golden tone much of the time, and a little teal popped up as well. The hues seemed fine given these stylistic choices. Blacks appeared dark and tight, while shadows showed nice delineation. Across the board, this was a strong presentation.

I thought the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Cop 2 was unexceptional, though it worked fine for this sort of film. Of course, I didn’t expect a dazzling soundfield from this sort of comedy, and I got exactly what I anticipated. In terms of effects, general ambience ruled the day.

In those forward channels, the music provided nice stereo separation and opened up the mix reasonably well. Even with the movie’s occasional action moments, there wasn’t a whole lot of activity or movement, but the effects conveyed a passable sense of space and place. The track functioned appropriately for the story.

Audio quality appeared fine. Dialogue was consistently warm and natural, though I noticed a little edginess at times. Effects were a minor component of the mix, and they seemed appropriately subdued and accurate; there wasn’t much to hear, but the various elements were clean and distinct. The music came across as acceptably distinctive. This was a mostly standard “comedy mix” and became a decent reproduction of the material.

The Blu-ray gives us an array of extras, and we find eight featurettes. These include “Security Force: The Cast of Paul Blart 2” (4:55), “Action Adventure” (5:57), “Back in the Saddle” (1:58), “How to Make a Movie” (4:12), “Le Reve” (4:49); “No Animals Were Harmed” (2:15), “Sales Tactics” (3:27) and “Real Cops” (1”16). Across these, we hear from actor/co-writer Kevin James, director Andy Fickman, production designer Perry Andelin Blake, visual effects supervisor Sean Devereaux, stunt performer Gabriel Nunez, stunt double Heath Hensley, dancer Colby Lemmo, choreographer Danita Eldridge, 2nd unit director Scott Rogers, and actors Raini Rodriguez, David Henrie, Neal McDonough, DB Woodside, Bas Rutten, Eduardo Verastegui, Daniella Alonso, Gary Valentine, Nick Turturro, Shelly Desai, Loni Love, Vic Dibitetto, and Shirley Knight.

The shows cover cast and performances, story and characters, stunts and action, choreography, and working with animals. From start to finish, the featurettes prove to be fluffy and insubstantial. We get a handful of filmmaking notes, but mostly we hear a lot of praise along with weak attempts at comedy.

Six Deleted Scenes run a total of four minutes, 15 seconds. As one can tell from the shortness of this compilation, none of these offer anything substantial. We find some minor story/character beats and a couple of gags but nothing noteworthy.

A Gag Reel lasts seven minutes, 42 seconds. Most of this falls into the usual goofs and giggles realm, but some alternate gags/lines appear as well. That makes the compilation more interesting for fans.

Finally, we get a Photo Gallery. This offers 47 shots and mixes pictures from the set and publicity elements. It’s a decent collection but nothing memorable.

The disc opens with ads for Aloha, Pixels, Hotel Transylvania 2, Grown Ups 2, Here Comes the Boom and Zookeeper. No trailer for Cop 2 shows up here.

A second disc provides a DVD copy of Cop 2. It includes the “Security Force” and “How to Make a Movie” featurettes but lacks the other extras.

No one should expect anything positive from Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. Burdened with an idiotic story, bad jokes and weak performances, this turns into an actively unlikable film. The Blu-ray boasts excellent visuals as well as ineffective supplements. Cop 2 turns into a complete dud.