Clerks II

Kevin Smith, USA, 2006
2 out of 4 stars

Kevin Smith is an interesting guy. I was reading something about how his box office has never measured up to his media hype, and I think it’s largely because of Smith as a personality, whether he’s starting feuds with comic writers, dishing about the Superman production process, or prancing around in his own work. Even at his best, his films tend to be missing something, as if Smith mostly seeks to impress you by what he’s willing to bring up, rather than by what he actually says about it. Here, he tries to have it both ways, throwing both the tasteless, apropos-of-nothing comedy and the mawkish sentimentality that we’ve seen in his work before, but he doesn’t fully succeed at either. There are undeniably some hilarious bits, but there is also too much dead air, mostly consisting of unfunny shock attempts by the often-tiresome Randal, and impotent objections from Dante, the protagonist. In the harsh light of color, the actors who portray both characters seem really flat and dull, leaving the luminous Rosario Dawson to practically carry the whole movie (and she does a better job than I would have thought her capable of).

The unfunniness isn’t really caused by the plot or the sappy stuff, but this stuff doesn’t work either. Part of it is that the pathos of something like Chasing Amy is missing here, because the choices are too easy and everyone is so shallow and one-note in the first place. Ultimately, though, the thin-skinned Smith should have known better than to (rightly) mock The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for its multiple endings, only to commit the same sin. Oh, and Jason Lee was shamefully wasted.

Source: MGM 35mm print
24 July, 10:50 PM