November 11, 2008: Clerks 2
I like the work of Kevin Smith, as I’ve previously noted. I happen to even like his sophomoric New Jersey slacker stuff, so when I heard that Clerks 2 was coming out, I was excited. We hadn’t seen the character of Randal Graves since the Flying Car short which ran on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno sometime in the early 2000s, although that does remind me that I haven’t watched the short-lived Clerks animated TV show at all recently.
I suppose this is another of those low-profile Weinstein-Company-funded (previously Miramax) efforts which is pretty much guaranteed to break even in the theatre because it’s so cheap to produce, and make a solid return on video, so despite the opportunity cost of not having that money available for higher-risk-higher-return projects, the Weinstein brothers’ reasoning is that it’s OK to indulge Kevin Smith now and then.
Well, I definitely found this to be a worthy sequel. Sure, we’re dealing with childish characters again, and the plot isn’t earth-shattering, but everyone (even the supporting players and the big-timers in their short cameos) seems really natural in their portrayal. Contrast this with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which was a similar return to well-treaded territory. While the latter film may have had a deliberate comic book sensibility about it, unfortunately that approach and the sprawling supporting cast led to wooden and awkward performances at times. Clerks 2 paints a believable picture of Dante and Randal 10+ years later, and as we all know, people really don’t change much.
One of the things I like about silly comedies is their rewatchability. When I can put a movie on in the background while working on my computer or cleaning up or filing, it lets me feel like I’m watching a movie without needing to devote my full attention and time, and it lets me bring even more reviews to my faithful readers! Clerks, Mallrats and even Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are good examples of this (along with timeless favourites such as Tommy Boy, My Cousin Vinny or Smokey and the Bandit). Clerks 2 fits right in here. I will laugh every time I see Randal illustrating the plotlines of the three Lord of the Rings movies, or Jay acting out the part of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, or Randal “taking it back”, or the train wreck “interspecies erotica” performance.
Clerks 2 is a simple story well told, with some familiar and some new characters we either love to hate or actually like, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome by being too long. Definitely recommended for fans of a bit of crude humour.
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