Joyless and tedious, Clerks 2 is an unsuccessful and pitifully desperate attempt to match the absurdity and satire of its sire, Clerks. The stagy, poorly acted quality of this film arises from the fact that as far as I can tell, Kevin Smith has never worked a day in a fast food joint, and has no understanding of lunch or dinner rushes. But no matter, let’s not let the customers get in the way of his comedy set pieces and touching heart to heart chats that would cause an indigestion worse than any Big Mac.
And therein lies the failure of this piece. The success of Clerks was the job and the customers: the absurdity of ringing customers day in and day out, getting paid next to nothing at a meaningless job shoveling forth worthless products like candy bars, cigarettes, and porno mags. Clerks somehow hit upon the existentialist nature of it all, capturing the zeitgeist of twenty somethings with nothing to show for their cheap labor but a mound of trivial knowledge.
But now it’s 2006, and the whole heap stinks to high heaven. Smith concocts a cockamamie story of a rich, beautiful woman who wants to run away with a loser who has a nothing but a convenience store and a fast food joint on his resume, and said loser realizing he is in love with his manager after they banged one out on the prep table. If that isn’t a misogynistic premise, then fuck it man, I’m going to start punching women and dragging them home by their ponytails.
The only real scene with any sort of honesty involves a man having sex with a mule, and was the only time I actually cracked a smile at this turgid mess. Thank God for Quicksilver…I would have hated myself had I actually paid a dime for this dreary exercise in self-indulgence.
Tags: clerks, clerks 2, kevin smith