Clerks II*

It's time for ... my Clerks II review.

Hey, where'd everyone go?

First, I'll say that the heroic boy who took me to see it, who is lovely and cute and smart, is now quite disgusted with my taste in movies. Oh well. In my defense, many intelligent people liked it. A.O. Scott from the New York Times gave it an excellent review.

Now then.

I have to agree, the Boy was right - this one was kinda stupid.

The original Clerks was fresh and funny, with intelligent lightening-fast dialogue about all sorts of topics: The types of customers in a convenience store, movies, sex and relationships, dead-end jobs.

In this one, I was glad to see the lovable characters again: Dante, Randal, Jay and Silent Bob. But most of their lines meant for shock value. Some of it was funny, but most of it was just there to shock. The first movie didn't just scream "cock" in a crowded theater.

I think maybe Kevin Smith used up most of his material in his other five movies and the "Clerks" cartoon show, and these jokes were left in his basement.

I did like the new character, Elias, and his reasons for not being able to have sex with his girlfriend.

But I felt bad for that poor sweet donkey.

All in all, I give it two trolls out of five.

I still think "Jersey Girl" was an excellent movie.

*(Note: I had a snappier version of this review up earlier, and somehow, the file got corrupted and a photo of some guns and some Spanish words became part of the post. I swear. Maybe some Kevin Smith fans got into it. Anyway, I tried to rewrite it from memory.)