Clerks 2

5 out of 7

Kevin Smith once again dusts off his old casts of idiosyncratic characters (and his old cast of cameo appearances) in Clerks 2, his update to the film that began his success as a writer, director and producer (Clerks).

The film follows the lives of Dante Hicks (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson), who are now employees at Mooby’s, a fictitious burger joint, after their beloved Quick Stop burns down. Like the first film, the entirety of this film takes place in one day and begins in the morning with Dante picking up best bud Randal. From there, it’s a quick run through the conflict (Dante is moving to Florida with over-bearing fiancée), the other conflict (he’s slept with and impregnated his beautiful boss Becky (Rosario Dawson)), and the third conflict (Randal hates that his friend is leaving).

There is nothing superb about this story, but the film is worth it because of the characters. It is a too often forgotten truth that watching normal people do normal things is boring; watching interesting people do normal things is exciting. In Clerks 2, there are plenty of interesting people doing plenty of normal things and every second is worth it.

What Smith does so well is play on pop culture references (which if you don’t get, does unfortunately hurt the humor of the film). But the self-referred “fat man” also creates these same sort of pop culture references. I can say quotes like “Oh we do…we definitely do” and a non-viewer of this film will only stare blankly at me (ask my fiancée…she’ll affirm this to be true). The same is true for terms like “interspecies erotica” and “pillowpants.” Don’t know what I mean? Gotta see the film.

Thus, Smith not only plays off of the culture that comes before him (including a riveting debate about Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings), but gives back something for future jokesters and pop culture junkies to work with.

The acting is decent only because one must respect being able to keep such a straight face during such funny scenes. Particularly interesting is just how beautiful Dawson is and just how many crummy-jobbed twenty-somethings are right now Googling for more pics, info, etc… about her. I don’t often trace pop culture trends, but this film may do something for her in terms of dork-chic.

Clerks 2 is a great chance to laugh…and sometimes, that’s good enough.