Kevin James is an interesting guy. His hit show, The King of Queens, was hilarious. However, when he made the transition to film, that amazing sense of humor was lost in the most base, predictable comedy that can be found in such films as Zookeeper and Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Here Comes the Boom, James’ latest starring vehicle, is exactly that, base, low-brow comedy. It’s the kind of film that I should really hate. But, that being said, I enjoyed it. There is just something about it, maybe it’s timing, that just made me laugh.

The story is about Scott Voss (James) an awful high-school biology teacher at a failing high school. The school administration decides that they need to cut $50,000 from their budget, and decides to cut the music program, which, of course, involves laying off the music teacher (Henry Winkler), who is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Worse yet, his wife is pregnant.

From there, Voss and Marty (music teacher) decide to try to find some way to raise the money. Then, one night, Voss visits the apartment of Niko (Bas Rutten), an Eastern-European immigrant who is being tutored by Voss in preparation for the citizenship test.

Voss happens to walk in while Niko is watching a Mixed-Martial-Arts (MMA) fight on TV. After learning how much money the fighters make, Voss decides to become an MMA fighter, using Niko as his trainer.

Of course, this goes poorly, as Voss isn’t much of a fight. His first several fights are embarrassing. However, eventually he builds himself up, and becomes a great fighter, who inspires all the students at the school, because triumph of the human spirit, something, whatever.

Okay, so the storyline isn’t that great. But, this isn’t a film you come to for the storyline. You come to this movie to laugh and, surprisingly, I did quite a bit of laughing during this movie.

This is largely due to the timing of the jokes. The style of the humor in this film is simple, setup-punchline. However, the setup is so nonchalant, that the punchline really catches you off-guard, and you laugh because you realize that you really should have been expecting it.

The acting is good too. I was surprised to find myself enjoying a Kevin James performance but in this film he plays the lovable jerk so well that you just can’t help but enjoy watching him. He, of course, has a change of heart later in the film, but that doesn’t keep the enjoyable snarkiness from coming through.

The film does fail, however, in two aspects: story and one-liners. The plot is a typical sports movie; inspirational, predictable and kind of trashy. It sort of works in the context of the film, but it would have been nice to have something a little more refreshing.

However, the one-liners in the film really fall flat. They are the typical sorts of garbage that you find in a Disney Channel kids movie, despite the fact that this film is far better than that.

Overall, I enjoyed Here Comes the Boom a lot more than I expected. It’s funny, it has great fight scenes and it’s well-acted. I just wish it had been less predictable.

Here Comes the Boom runs at 105 minutes and is rated PG for some rude humor, language and bouts of MMA sports violence. The film will be officially released, Oct. 12.

For more movie reviews, read the Oct. 1 article, Musical comedy generate applause from theater (VIDEO).