Maristar, some friends and I went out to the theatre the other night to catch the new M. Night Shama-llama-ding-dong movie, but it turned out we had just missed a showing and the next one was an unbearable number of hours away. Since Clerks II was playing, we decided to pop into that one instead.
This film stars all the familiars from the first Clerks - Randal and Dante, with brief scenes with Jay and Silent Bob thrown in - and my first thoughts were quite guarded. I was asking myself many questions waiting for the ads to end - “How can you make a clerks sequel?” “Is it in black and white too?” “How can you follow up the original awesomeness?”
After sitting through the movie, I have to say that I did laugh a few times and there were some quite awesome parts to it. However, it did not live up to the Clerks legacy. Kevin Smith often proclaims that dialogue is the essence of film, and it’s dialogue that largely made the original movie. This movie did have some funny, but uninspired (non-ground-breaking) talking bits, but it seemed to primarily focus on the plot of the movie itself - a little love triangle that’s going on in the background.
If one recalls the original Clerks movie, there was a series of awesome speaking scenes with no real plot direction. Just two guys working in a QuikStop. This time around there’s a whole touchy-feely warm-fuzzy love story happening, which detracts from valuable dialogue time. One of my favorite parts about the original Clerks was the way Randal rattled off arguments (about Death Stars or Porn Videos or whatever else) in his quick, monotone, unemotional way. In Clerks II, his performance is perpetually being dragged down by his emotional acting to fit with the backplot.
Now for the whole ViewAskewniverse problem. Kevin Smith wanted to write a final script to finish off the whole series (Clerks, MallRats, Chasing Amy, etc.) - which ended up being “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.” At the time, I was happy that the universe had ended; there was closure. It upset me that they broke that closure and went and made yet another movie for the series.
Turns out that Kevin Smith decided to make one last movie for two honorable reasons. was doing a 10-year-anniversary commentary on the original Clerks movie, and it reminded him of how much he loved the characters and why he got into movies in the first place. Secondly, he promised Jason Mewes that if he stayed off drugs, he could act as the Jay character one more time. Making this movie was Kevin keeping that promise.
I’m happy I saw this movie; it whisked me back to the good ol’ days when I sat in dark basements watching a bootleg copy of Clerks and snickering at all the sexual jokes. It was a nice stroll through memory lane. I’m glad I saw this movie - I just wish I rented it instead of spending that money on the big screen. As I said in the car ride on the way home - ‘This isn’t the greatest movie in the world; it’s just a tribute.’
Highlight of the movie: When a mom escorted her 12-year-old-ish boy out of the theatre about 25 minutes in.
After the fact, I found some interesting websites about the movie. First up is sort of a running commentary on the making of the film including some troubles they had and people they laughed at in screenings. I found this commentary a whole lot more interesting than the movie itself!
Then there is Kevin Smith’s personal blog where he just rants about things weekly. Shooting down his critics and generally being funny. I suggest it.
Then there is a 10-episode behind-the-scenes making-of video blog! It sound exciting, but to tell the truth I’m so busy reading his blog that I haven’t actually watched it yet.
Posted on February 19th, 2008 by Iride Daley 
Comedy:
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Drama/Thriller/Suspense:
All around goodness:
on February 23rd, 2008 at 2:10 am #
Personally, I’m just sick of Ben Stiller. And Will Ferrell is really hit or miss with me. I love Anchorman, but didn’t like Talledega Nights at all. I didn’t really like any of the Matrix movies, even less so now that the AMC movie channel has been playing it every 4 hours. I hated the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie enough to boycott the next ones.
With those exceptions, however, I’m pretty much down with this list. Especially Pi, Juno, Huckabee’s, Shawshank, High Fidelity, Lobowski, Caddyshack, Office Space, Life Aquatic and Usual Suspects all among my all-time favorites.