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Clerks II

(2006)

98 min. MGM. Director: Kevin Smith. Cast: Brian Christopher O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith.

Not since The Wizard of Oz has the transition from black and white to color been so thrilling! At least that's what Kevin Smith's die-hard fans will say about Clerks II, the sequel to the writer-director's breakthrough 1994 debut. You needn't have seen Clerks to enjoy Clerks II, though the movie is infused with clever references to wide-ranging elements of writer-director Smith's View Askewniverse.

Lifelong friends Dante and Randal (played by Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson) are no longer video store clerks. In a move that's lateral at best, they resort to working at the fast-food joint Mooby's while waiting out Dante's pending move, with his fiancé Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach), from New Jersey to Florida. The life change is complicated by the prospect of the friends separating, as well as by Dante's feelings for Mooby's manager Becky (Rosario Dawson at her most fetching).

It's par for the course that Clerks II is an excuse for Smith's oddball character comedy, inventive profanity, irreverent pop culture arguments, and cameos by celebrity buddies. Smith verbally meanders through "pussy trolls" and "donkey shows," an epic smackdown between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, the confusion between Anne Frank and Helen Keller, and why the Transformers aren't blasphemous, among other topics. References to X-Men 2, Batman, C.H.U.D., and Silence of the Lambs flow like water, and Smith gets great mileage not only from the signature characters of Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself), but from a new character, loser and "Funployee of the Month" Elias (Trevor Fehrman).

Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, and Kevin Weisman (Alias) pass through, and Wanda Sykes and Earthquake spark an uproarious argument over racial slurs. Smith's direction is generally smooth, though he somehow manages to draw attention to his camera whenever he moves it, most notably during a 360° shot during an intense conversation and a crane shot. The latter camera move becomes part of the joke when Dawson's sexy rooftop dance breaks into a humorously random chorus number.

Clerks II makes a surprisingly convincing case for Dante and Randal as characters worthy of a revisit once a decade; perhaps unwittingly, Smith has followed Richard Linklater's example of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, using highly verbal characters as generational mouthpieces. Though the leads' acting hasn't evolved much, the characters remain somehow likeable—perhaps because they're so clearly the two halves of Smith's own personality. The fusty, indecisive Dante feels old and concerned with steps in pursuit of a conventional life, while randy Randal is desperate to keep his arrested development moving as slowly as possible.

Given that one of the film's themes is taking control of one's destiny, it's ironic that Smith not long ago swore off doing any more "Jay and Silent Bob"-world movies. After Jersey Girl, Smith ate his words to put Clerks II into motion, but at least for the moment, he gets the last laugh. Where Jersey Girl failed—at integrating sentiment into the ViewAskewniverse—Clerks II succeeds, without sacrificing Smith's crowd-pleasing raunch. And, after all, who can begrudge a little emotion of a film that includes "interspecies erotica"?