Clerks II Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)August 16th, 2006
Clerks II (2006)
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
July 25, 2006
It was tempting to storm out of Clerks II after 40 minutes, shouting about how this is the first time I've walked out of a movie in 30 years. [Which would sound odd coming from a guy who's only 32 years old.] Since the theatre must have been mostly populated with Kevin Smith acolytes, they probably would have got the joke and maybe even LOLed when they realized I was only kidding. After all, this movie is pretty damn funny and it's full of rude people, so audience interaction of the rude and humourous variety might have been more welcome than if we'd been watching, say, An Inconvenient Truth or something.
Then again, even pretending to walk out would have meant I'd miss some good jokes. Since most comedies stink like the stinkiest stank that ever stunk, kudos to this one. Clerks II is a funny flick. If you're into dick and fart jokes (and many other detailed descriptions of body parts & functions) and you enjoyed previous View Askew films, you wouldn't miss this one no matter what any critic says about it. Jay and Silent Bob are back, of course. Dante & Randal are still clerkin'. The scrumptastic Rosario Dawson joins the team and fits in nicely. In fact, she meshes so well with Jason Mewes, Smith, Brian O'Halloran, and Jeff Anderson that it's fair to say that she's just like one of the guys. A curvy, smokin'-hot one of the guys of course, but you catch the drift.
What's the story, you say? Well, the convenience store from the original Clerks burns down and Dante & Randal have to find work at a fictional fast food joint called Mooby's (which you'll remember from Dogma). Dawson is the manager, Trevor Fehrman is a LOTR/Transformer-worshipping geeky employee, and Jay & Silent Bob are still hangin' out and sellin' drugs...even though they've recently been in rehab. Dante is engaged to a sexy control freak named Emma (played by Smith's wife). She's making Dante quit this crummy job and move to Florida, yet he doesn't seem to be in a rush to leave New Jersey. Worse, he's really in love with someone else. Maybe it's Randal. Oh wait, maybe it's Randal who loves Dante.
Ah, gay subtext, which can always be found in a Smith movie. On top of that, there's plenty of racist and sexist talk coming out of Randal's mouth. What makes all this so silly and not especially offensive is because---just as when Cartman does it on South Park---the biggest idiot in the picture is the one doing the foul-mouthing. Hell, the first Clerks nearly got smacked with an NC-17 rating because of its explicit dialogue alone and this one certainly tries hard to top it. Smith loves tackling the taboo. Never mind the raunchy talk about what lovers do to each other's nether regions, this movie goes so far as to include a lengthy scene of man/animal lovin'. I don't particularly want to hear about bestiality (let alone see it), but anything can be funny if you do it right. The film could have done without this entire bit and been no worse off, although Dawson's reaction when she walks in on it is priceless.
So the cast spends time gabbing, arguing, hacking on customers, and occasionally selling some fast food. It's not that much different than the first Clerks, really. The sequel isn't trapped inside a cramped variety store this time, at least. The loserdom mentality is the same, however, and the going-nowhere-doing-nothing theme is the flick's main selling point. And fear not, the pop-culture references (Star Wars, LOTR, The Silence Of The Lambs, Clerks I) occupy time in most scenes. Using Randal as his outlet, Smith takes a big poke at LOTR and its legions of fans, not to mention Internetters in general.
Jay & Silent Bob are going to be the main attraction for some people (as will cameos by longtime Smith friends like Ben Affleck and Jason Lee), but Anderson as Randal is the star here. He's hilarious throughout. He DOES hit a snag near the end when he's forced to be honest and far too literal about his relationship with O'Halloran's Dante. This scene represents Smith's biggest Jersey Girl-esque misstep. Or maybe his biggest misstep are the final 10 minutes, a montage that vindicates the unvindicatable. It's all a little too sentimental under the circumstances and this is the sequence that throws the picture out of whack. Odd to say such a thing about something sweet and uplifting when we're "treated" to a tasteless hunk of manimal porn earlier, but so it is when you're in the comedy business. Be offensive, just don't be schmaltzy.
And if you're going to go down these controversial roads, at least bust some guts doing it. The Big Lebowski and This Is Spinal Tap are pretty tasteless too, but I'll laugh at those flicks until the day I die. If Joel Siegel is so offended by a movie that wasn't made for old coots like him, he should have done his homework beforehand and found out what Kevin Smith is known for. His scripts might be too wordy---who really talks like that?---yet he paints crass pictures with vivid words alone. Smith still doesn't have great talent or vision as a director. What he does, though, is keep it simple and give his audience what it wants. If you're easily put off by racy, bawdy language, stay away from Clerks II. The rest of us will have a good time without you.
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