You will all be happy to know that Clerks 2 is FUNNY! I mean, chuckle-funny as well as guffaw-funny, cringing-funny and "I-cannot-believe-he-just-said-that"-funny. At a brisk pace and a 97 minute runtime, writer/directer Kevin Smith delivers a sequel that achieves something very few sequels do. It unflinchingly returns to the source material with hilarious and sometimes painful results. Purists may not dig the film but I was sold after Jeff Anderson's brutal dismissal of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. "It was three films of people walking."
The debate between Star Wars geeks and LOTR geeks pretty much sums up what's changed in the past 12 years since we were first introduced to Dante and Randal which is to say... not much. And that's what adds to Clerks 2's humor as well as its sense of melancholy. I mean, everyone has that friend, boyfriend, fuckbuddy who just has not changed, right? Probably never will change. This is a common problem among those people suffering from the Gen-X hangover. While 10 years ago the slacker mentality was glorified, today those flannel shirts seem pretty lame. But... the inability to change is also one of those outstanding existential issues.
If Smith's original Clerks was Act One of a grunge-era spin on Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, then Clerks 2 echoes the second act of that play. More of the same only sadder. Don't get me wrong! Clerks 2 has some amazing gross-out gags, brilliant zingers, and, of course, scene-stopping insults. But what makes the whole thing a little poignant and what I have to applaud Smith for the most is how much he LOVES these two guys. HE LOVES THEM (in a heterosexual way). He takes a time out from the pop culture references and the sexual obscenities to do something he really didn't attempt in the first film. He delves into their motivations and what prevents them from embracing futures they don't want.
The pathos of the slacker may not be the driving point of a film as gleefully humorous as this one but it is what separates Kevin Smith films from foamy, hit-and-miss, "frat pack" flicks like Wedding Crashers or You, Me & Dupree. Jason Mewes is as always an absolute riot. Rosario Dawson is a little miscast but its nothing that Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson can't offset with their great verbal chemistry. Newcomer Trevor Fehrman comes dangerously close to stealing the movie. Smith himself shows up for Silent Bob duty, of course. Its good to see a director so intent on exploring his own existential crisis insert himself into his film as the butt of fat jokes as opposed to SOME PEOPLE who make themselves the LEAD.
Bottom Line: REALLY LIKED IT. But I also love Mallrats with a fierce passion that will not be quenched. So...
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