Clerks II

by: Average Joe 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 8 hours, 54 minutes ago

Release Date:

7/21/06

Company:

Metro Goldwyn Mayer

 

After the release of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back I remember Kevin Smith going on record as saying he wasn’t going to be doing anymore of the “View Askew” films. Naturally, when I saw the trailer for Clerks II I was a bit shocked. At first I thought that Kevin Smith did it for the reason most people produce sequels to films they swore they’d never do again….money, however I’ve since found out he did it for a different, more noble reason.

In 2001 when Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was released, actor Jason Mewes became addicted to heroin. Kevin Smith stepped in and told Mewes that if he cleaned himself up, he (Smith) would put him in another film. Mewes has now been clean and sober for 3 years, and hence the reason for Clerks II.

When I went to see this film I was a bit hesitant seeing as how the last film Smith did was Jersey Girl which is, well….you know.

After about 10min of watching, I knew all my hesitations were unfounded because I honestly didn’t stop laughing from the start of the film until the end. The same crude, “bathroom” humor that was ever present in the original film, is back, and in my opinion better than ever. Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson return as Dante Hicks, and Randal Graves – the original convenience store clerks who in the film’s beginning arrive to the Quick Stop to discover is has been completely burned to the ground.

The film fast forwards about a year to find Dante and Randal working at Mooby’s on Dante’s last day as he prepares to move to Florida with his fiancé Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach Smith), and start a new life. New to the cast is Trevor Fehrman as Elias, a Transformers/Lord of the Rings obsessed religious fanatic, and Rosario Dawson as Becky, Dante and Randal’s boss, and every guy’s dream girl. And of course what Kevin Smith film would be complete without everyone’s favorite pot-smoking misfits Jay and Silent Bob.

What I really enjoyed about this flm was the fact that it stayed so true to the spirit of the original. Walking out of the theater I heard a lot of people say “I’ve never heard the F-word so many times” which is true, but when you go to see one of these movies you’ve got to expect that sort of thing, in the same way you’d expect to see Peter Parker shoot webs in Spider-Man.

While the movie does have A LOT of profanity, it does have a pretty good message at the end of the film that I think everyone can relate to. Luckily for me, profanity doesn’t bother me in the slightest, and “bathroom humor” still makes me laugh out loud the same way it did when I was 12. From the beginning scenes of this film, all the way to the end I found myself holding my sides with laughter.

Another aspect I enjoy about these films is how they all seem to relate to modern times. While working at Mooby’s, Dante and Randal are forced to engage in endless conversations about the upcoming Transformers live-action film (which is being filmed right now), and which trilogy is better: Lord of the Rings or Star Wars (the original trilogy that is) in a scene that had me laughing so hard I almost re-inacted a moment in which a “LOTR” fan vomits after enduring countless insults at the hands of Randal.

The movie itself is a great sequel to the original, and in no way does anything to damage the “prestigious” feel of the other View Askew films (“cough*like Jersey Girl did*cough*). In fact if I had to say which was the better of the Clerks films, I’d have to go with this one.

Whether it’s the spot on dialogue, Jay mimicking the infamous Buffalo Bill scene from Silence of the Lambs, or the random dance sequence with the Jackson 5; fans of the View Askew universe are sure to be pleased with the latest, and quite possibly last installment of films.