Kevin James cleans up well with ‘Here Comes the Boom,’ a new family-fun comedy

Forget “The King of Queens.” Now Kevin James is the King of Clean.

“Here Comes the Boom,” opening Friday, is the latest PG-rated comedy from the guy who brought us family-friendly hits like “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and “Zookeeper.”

James, however, isn’t entirely comfortable with his new title.

“I don’t want to be known as this goody-two-shoes who can only do comedies where puppies are licking peanut butter off my face,” laughs the 47-year-old Stony Brook, L.I., native and father of three.

“But there’s enough gratuitous stuff out there, and if I go to a movie with my kids, I want to comfortable watching it with them.”

Still, “Here Comes the Boom” displays a maturity not seen in James’ kiddie comedies. For one thing, talking animals have been replaced by mixed martial arts fighters.

In the movie, directed by Frank Coraci (“The Wedding Singer”), James stars as Scott Voss. He’s a teacher who steps into the ring to raise money to try to save his high school’s music program.

“My other comedies were goofier — the big guy falling down,” he says. “With this one, I wanted to move that bar a bit and make things more grounded. Adults can enjoy it.”

The movie is a mixture of “Rocky” (James’ all-time favorite film) and inspiring-teacher films like “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” This may be an intriguing combination, but “it’s a tricky one to sell,” he admits. “You don’t want to end up with a feathered fish, where people are like, ‘I don’t even know what it is.’ ”

For his part, James knew the kind of movie he wanted to make. “Kevin is very strong-minded and committed,” says Henry Winkler, who co-stars as the school’s music teacher in “Boom.”

The “Happy Days” alum cites a scene in which he ad-libbed the line, “I hate that man,” about an administrator who’s embezzled money from the school.

“Kevin said to me, ‘Would you not say that? I don’t want hate in this movie,’” Winkler recalls. “So his point of view is all over the film.”

James does use the h-word, however, to describe shooting the movie’s grueling fight scenes.

“I wanted to know what it’s like to be a real fighter, and I hated it,” says the former high school wrestler, who trained 14 months for the film. “It’s not fun. I got tagged quite a few times.”

That’s what happens when you use real Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters like Netherlands-born ex-champ Bas Rutten, who nearly steals the movie as James’ wannabe-U.S.-citizen trainer. The comic has been a UFC fan since the league’s inception in 1993 and has befriended many of the competitors.

Source : nydailynews[dot]com