Clerks II (2006, DVD)

In 1994, writer-director Kevin Smith scored a surprise indie hit with the low-budget, black-and-white CLERKS, which won awards at the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals and has attracted a growing cult audience over the years. Following such movies as MALLRATS, CHASING AMY, and DOGMA, Smith returns to his roots for CLERKS II, a very funny, very raunchy sequel. It's been more than 10 years, but Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) are still working at the same Quick Stop video and convenience store in New Jersey--until it burns down. They both end up finding jobs at the nearby Mooby's, a fast-food joint (with the motto "I'm Eating It!") managed by Becky (Rosario Dawson). While Dante gets prepared to move to Florida to marry Emma (Smith's real-life wife, Jennifer Schwalbach), Randal harasses geeky "Funployee of the Month" Elias (Trevor Fehrman), a dweeb who worships the Transformers and believes, much to Randal's consternation, that THE LORD OF THE RINGS is superior to STAR WARS. Also back are Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith), who contribute their own warped world view of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. The film features a string of cameos by familiar faces from other Smith films, including Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Walter Flanagan, and producer Scott Mosier, as well as Kevin Weisman (ALIAS), Ethan Suplee (MY NAME IS EARL), and Wanda Sykes (CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM); and the excellent soundtrack ranges from Talking Heads and the Smashing Pumpkins to King Diamond and Smith vet Alanis Morissette. And beware the donkey.

"Clerks 2" is a sequel-based comedy from Writer/Producer/Director Kevin Smith, who started a great career by bringing us his original Black & White cult-hit (CLERKS) in 1994. It was the first of, (now 6), "New Jersey Saga's". A dialogue-driven comedy of two young men, (Dante and Randall), wasting their lives away, day-by-day, working as "Clerks" in a local QuickStop Market Store and Video Store adjacent to it. Their only seemingly driven exercise is to keep two losers from hanging outside their markets everyday. Enter "Jay & Silent Bob", Kevin Smith's master creation in comedy. (Kevin Smith himself plays 'Silent Bob'). "Jay", a foul-mouthed obscene loser and Silent Bob who nearly never speaks, but will seemingly, (once a movie), come up with the one most intriguingly insightful thought and speak it once. Usually, a solve-all solution that puts everything and everyone into answer-mode for whatever crisis they face throughout these "6" New Jersey based comedies. -- CLERKS 2 is a return to what Kevin Smith brought us. We are reintroduced to Dante and Randall at the QuickMart, where they become forced to get new jobs when the QuickMart burns down. (You really need to see the first CLERKS to appreciate this). They get jobs at a local fast-food restaraunt "Mooby's", where the restaraunts catch phrase is "I'm Eating It!". The dialogue starts to fly and the obscene is let loose, as Dante & Randall begin the daily task of opening and running the local fast-food stop, dealing with customers and debating heavily what is better "Lord of the Rings" or "Star Wars"....and WHY? -- Kevin Smith has always had a unique ear for dialogue and insight into relationships and an incredible gift to produce these, always low-budget films, that pack more entertainment into scenes than imaginable, without nearly-ever changing scenery. Yes, the entire movie will be filmed in exactly one-spot only, but you easily become enraptured into the obscene, sacriligious, racial-vs-non-racial, insensitive, heavily sex-driven dialogue that "We all think about but never say". Well, Dante and Randall will say it, and a lot more....and so do "Jay & Silent Bob". Well, at least "Jay" does. -- The movie CLERKS 2 is simply a gift from Kevin Smith. In days when special effects, computer-generated destruction and creatures, explosions, gun-battles and more dominate our films., it is an absolute pleasure to sit down and be entertained by a film that makes you laugh simply from what these characters "talk-about" while wasting their days away....and the effects their conversations have on others. -- Really, I guess, I am praising ALL the "New Jersey" films of Kevin Smith in this review of his latest, (and hopefully not last), film "CLERKS 2". -- Kevin Smith brilliantly chases down what we are programmed not to say.. and breaks the chains. NONE OF THESE FILMS ARE MEANT FOR YOUNGSTERS !!!! -- Adults, sit back, release your inner phobias and offensive barriers, and let these loveable losers entertain you, like you've never been entertained. You will laugh until it hurts. SEE ALL 6 FILMS -- (CLERKS, MALLRATS, CHASING AMY, DOGMA, JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, CLERKS 2) -- IN ORDER!!!! The same characters and cameos are in every movie as they build on-top of one another, and you fall in love more and more with these "outlets of the human experience". -- CLERKS 2, I laughed so hard I was in tears....and that was only the opening scene. -- Thank You Kevin Smith !!!!

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