In the introduction to his collected screenplays Kevin Smith writes, ‘I used to work in this convenience store. I made a little picture about life in the slow lane.’ It was about a place that was suffocating his ambition, it was a gem called ‘Clerks’ and it won awards.
With the release of ‘Clerks 2’, thirteen years and six films on, one wonders how much ambition he had in the first place. A glance at some of his films’ taglines suggests a rather limited vision:
‘Mallrats’: They’re not there to shop. They’re not there to work. They’re just there.
‘Jersey Girl’: Forget about who you thought you were and just accept who you are
And now, ‘Clerks 2’: No experience necessary.
It is all too appropriate as Kevin Smith seems trapped in emotional stasis.
‘Clerks 2’ replays the same dynamic between two slackers, Dante and Randall. In the original, they were young; they worked in a convenience store and hated the customers. In the sequel, they are in their thirties; they work in a burger bar and resent the diners. To combat the tedium, they do as little work as possible.
With the release of ‘Clerks 2’, thirteen years and six films on, one wonders how much ambition he had in the first place. A glance at some of his films’ taglines suggests a rather limited vision:
‘Mallrats’: They’re not there to shop. They’re not there to work. They’re just there.
‘Jersey Girl’: Forget about who you thought you were and just accept who you are
And now, ‘Clerks 2’: No experience necessary.
It is all too appropriate as Kevin Smith seems trapped in emotional stasis.
‘Clerks 2’ replays the same dynamic between two slackers, Dante and Randall. In the original, they were young; they worked in a convenience store and hated the customers. In the sequel, they are in their thirties; they work in a burger bar and resent the diners. To combat the tedium, they do as little work as possible.
In a way that is bound to echo what fans of the original movie will say about the sequel, the characters now talk wistfully about their good times at the grocery store, closed down due to narrative convenience and Smith filing for creative bankruptcy.
He didn’t need to write a plot for ‘Clerks’. This time, Smith, realizing that unless we are to visit these characters every decade, (and let’s not rule anything out) has presented the audience with a test of character as taxing as a question broadcast by ITV play:
Will Dante, who has reached his thirties, seemingly without ever travelling on the New Jersey Turnpike, go with the girl who wants to whisk him away to a new life in Florida; or, will he choose his boss at the burger bar, who lets him paint her toenails and is happy to shop locally?
He didn’t need to write a plot for ‘Clerks’. This time, Smith, realizing that unless we are to visit these characters every decade, (and let’s not rule anything out) has presented the audience with a test of character as taxing as a question broadcast by ITV play:
Will Dante, who has reached his thirties, seemingly without ever travelling on the New Jersey Turnpike, go with the girl who wants to whisk him away to a new life in Florida; or, will he choose his boss at the burger bar, who lets him paint her toenails and is happy to shop locally?
Moreover, how will this choice affect his best friend Randall as, in Smith’s world, male friendships are awarded higher status than relationships with women?
The question is not worthy of the 97 minutes running time. Kevin Smith attempts to recreate the spirit of the original and it is embarrassing. The dialogue, so appropriate for Clerks, now feels juvenile.
Smith, acknowledging this problem, creates a teenager character who argues with Dante and Randall about the merits of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ over those of ‘Star Wars’. It is generational conflict expressed as hobbit versus ewok. It diminishes Smith’s artistic stature. His work has gone from highlighting blue-collar depression to simply being depressing.
Everything looks stale. In the 90s, Dante briefly escaped his little shop of horror by playing hockey on the store’s roof. In the sequel, the roof becomes a dance floor. It is a tagged on scene designed purely to echo the original and the characters may as well be the puritanical critics who hated Smith’s foul-mouth dialogue, tangoing on the tombstone inscribed with the word ‘Ideas’.
For the now banal dialogue, Matt Zoeller Seitz must accept part of the blame. Smith read the following in Matt’s review of Mallrats: ‘After seeing the movie, I figured out why the enigmatic Silent Bob doesn’t like to talk – when he opens his mouth, everyone realises what a sweet guy he is.’
Smith then states: “I started writing ‘Chasing Amy’ that day.”
That journey of writing eventually produced the ‘Clerks 2’ screenplay, and although Silent Bob still doesn’t like to talk, everyone else has clearly been overdosing on the lyrics of Michael Bolton. The journey has produced a schizophrenic script with an unsettling combination of poor, sexually graphic jokes and watershed moments from the ‘Movies of the Week’ box set.
Its scope is just not worthy of the cinema: Smith is small screen. After the success of ‘Clerks’, he admitted, ‘There was a time when New York City was still somewhat foreign and exotic to me.’ Obviously, it still is. Like the main characters in ‘Pleasantville’, a comedy which has the tagline ‘It’s Just Around the Corner’, Smith is still stuck in a two street zip-code.
In ‘Pleasantville’, a world of originality slowly opens up for the inhabitants and colour blooms in the neighbourhood. ‘Clerks’ was shot in black and white. While ‘Clerks 2’ is in colour, sadly it is devoid of enlightenment.
The question is not worthy of the 97 minutes running time. Kevin Smith attempts to recreate the spirit of the original and it is embarrassing. The dialogue, so appropriate for Clerks, now feels juvenile.
Smith, acknowledging this problem, creates a teenager character who argues with Dante and Randall about the merits of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ over those of ‘Star Wars’. It is generational conflict expressed as hobbit versus ewok. It diminishes Smith’s artistic stature. His work has gone from highlighting blue-collar depression to simply being depressing.
Everything looks stale. In the 90s, Dante briefly escaped his little shop of horror by playing hockey on the store’s roof. In the sequel, the roof becomes a dance floor. It is a tagged on scene designed purely to echo the original and the characters may as well be the puritanical critics who hated Smith’s foul-mouth dialogue, tangoing on the tombstone inscribed with the word ‘Ideas’.
For the now banal dialogue, Matt Zoeller Seitz must accept part of the blame. Smith read the following in Matt’s review of Mallrats: ‘After seeing the movie, I figured out why the enigmatic Silent Bob doesn’t like to talk – when he opens his mouth, everyone realises what a sweet guy he is.’
Smith then states: “I started writing ‘Chasing Amy’ that day.”
That journey of writing eventually produced the ‘Clerks 2’ screenplay, and although Silent Bob still doesn’t like to talk, everyone else has clearly been overdosing on the lyrics of Michael Bolton. The journey has produced a schizophrenic script with an unsettling combination of poor, sexually graphic jokes and watershed moments from the ‘Movies of the Week’ box set.
Its scope is just not worthy of the cinema: Smith is small screen. After the success of ‘Clerks’, he admitted, ‘There was a time when New York City was still somewhat foreign and exotic to me.’ Obviously, it still is. Like the main characters in ‘Pleasantville’, a comedy which has the tagline ‘It’s Just Around the Corner’, Smith is still stuck in a two street zip-code.
In ‘Pleasantville’, a world of originality slowly opens up for the inhabitants and colour blooms in the neighbourhood. ‘Clerks’ was shot in black and white. While ‘Clerks 2’ is in colour, sadly it is devoid of enlightenment.
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