Clerks II

I'm a fan of the original film, so I couldn't help but rent this one. And I can't help but compare the two, since it's a sequel. Honestly, I don't think the sequel is nearly as funny, but it has more heart. My expectations definitely played a part in how I felt about it, because I was initially expecting a level of comedy that wasn't always happening. There would be laugh-out-loud moments, but sometimes it was a long time between those moments.

It was only about halfway through the film that I truly understood where Kevin Smith was going with this. It was really about choosing a place for yourself in the world, and how making those choices effects friendships. It's not very often that you'll see a movie with a bestiality scene played for laughs that turns out to be actually touching in the end (the movie, not the scene). I very much enjoyed the ending, which brought the story started in the first movie to a perfect close.

The deleted scenes also showed an interesting thing about the movie that could have been. I found the bits about Jay and Silent Bob finding Jesus (which were almost all deleted) to be hilarious, but I suppose they would've offended a lot of people. And after Dogma, the inclusion of those bits could've created the perception that Kevin Smith was generally anti-Christian. I don't think he truly is anti-Christian; I think he just finds certain aspects of Christianity funny. I don't consider myself anti-Christian, and I certainly laughed.

I'd call this one a 6 on a 1-10 scale, bumping it up a notch or two if you're a Kevin Smith fan in the first place, and down two notches if you're easily offended (though I don't see why you'd rent a Kevin Smith film if you are). It's not as good overall as "Chasing Amy", and it's not as funny as some of his other work, but it makes some very real statements about life. I think he's capable of making a great film if he can learn to write dialogue that isn't so damn vulgar all of the time.

I've been known to sling enough profanity around myself to offend more sensitive ears, but why do some writers (Quentin Tarentino is another one) feel that everybody can't finish a sentence without at least one profanity in it? There might be individual characters who speak that way, but not all of them should. How many people do you know who really swear that much? Profanity loses all of its power when overused, and it's just not as inherently funny as some people seem to think it is.