Clerks II (2006)

Clerks II (2006)

6/10

Starring

Brian O’Halloran

Jeff Anderson

Directed by Kevin Smith

We all remember the first Kevin Smith film Clerks in 1994, well after making many other movies in his View Askewniverse we are back to the two men of the Convenient and Video Rental store. Many of our old friends have moved on, but we still have Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson), with their weed selling friends Jay and Silent Bob.

Clerks 2 is just as good as the first one and the introduction of the new characters made the movie dynamic. Done more than a decade after the first movie, it was nice to see that our leads are still struggling to get their life together.

The idea of the men still struggling to get their lives out of the stagnancy of over a decade ago is something many can relate to.

Then I so much appreciate the way Smith (who wrote, directed and produced the first movie and wrote and directed this one) burnt down the place we are very much familiar with in the first movie.

The movie plot has our two getting new jobs at a fast food restaurant. You can guess than Randall with his immature attitude had something to do with the burning down of their stores.

A year after working in the fast food restaurant, Dante decided to take charge of this life and make something out of it. He wants to move to Florida with his fiancée, whose father will provide them with a home and a business to run. As usual Dante's love life is in a weird triangle situation, now we have his fiancée and his boss (Rosario Dawson).

Randall is resentful towards Dante for this planned decision and we see him handle it in his own way.

Now our fun drug dealers Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith respectively) followed Dante and Randal, and now loiter outside their fast food restaurant. Their own lives also takes a different turn.

We now have to journey through the lives of the former clerks as they try to manuaver life out of their comfort zone in their previous stores.

It was hard to rate the acting of the actors in the first movie, because you can see that they are just people trying to make a movie, putting in their best. Here you can see the maturity in their character and also in their acting. These maturity in the acting and also in the writing is what for me makes this movie very much more inviting than the first movie. Also, the movie does not fall into the slump of the second part not living up to the first movie.

We also get to enjoy a better cinematography and lighting. Again, just as the first movie this movie was a critical and commercial success.

Fun movie to see and enjoy, but you will need to either see the first movie or read up about it to fully appreciate Clerks 2.