.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Clerks has always had a very special place both in my heart and on my video shelf. The Kevin Smith phenom was released in 1994 and after seeing the film at a midnight showing in Toronto, I instantly fell in love with the film. So when the VHS tape became available soon after, it was put in the rightful front of my collection where it was viewed over and over again each Christmas or when the men all got together for a cottage week-end. Ahhhh, the memories.

Writer, director, producer, editor and Silent Bob himself, Kevin Smith spent the next few years trying to grow out of the shadow of his first film. Mallrats was sophomore poop. Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl had moments of inspiration, but on a whole, none of them could average more than two and half stars from this critic.

It was no surprise that Smith went back to the original characters almost a decade and a half later to try and again capture magic in a bottle. If ever you get a chance to watch An Evening With Kevin Smith (2002) in which Smith goes to college campuses and puts himself front and centre for a question and answer session, you will see that the audiences were salivating for news of a possible sequel.

Clerks II brings back all the familiar faces. Of course, some of them have gone on and made themselves a little more popular since they first appeared in a Smith vehicle. Some guy named Affleck and Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) come in and out for a cameo each, but it is the characters of Randal (Jeff Anderson), Dante (Brian O'Halloran) Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Mr. Smith) that are the focus of the continued adventure.

Dante has been busy since we last seen him working at the One Stop Convenience Store. Busy doing nothing that is. After a fire at the store leaves the Dante and Randal jobless, they pick up jobs at Mooby's, a fast food restaurant operated by one very cute Becky (Rosario Dawson), and we pick up with them one year into their new found careers as burger flippers and order takers.

Granted, Dante has other ideas. He is engaged to a dominating blonde that is taking him from his New Jersey home down to Florida where they intend to get married and live with her parents while running a family owned Car Wash. If this doesn't sound exciting, believe me, Dante isn't exactly jumping for joy either.

This is the underlying story to a movie that had moments of fun but definitely couldn't hold a match to the raw energy and originality of its predecessor.

The problem is that Smith seems to try too hard here with his dialogue. We all know that Smith can write and we know that he likes to use as much profanity as the next guy. But Smith just can't seem to catch the fluidity and realism that was so evident in the first Clerks.

And then there are the characters that are old and fat (sorry Randal, but your two chins just drove me bonkers on a 8 story screen). Even Jay and Silent Bob are bothersome and don't offer the same freshness and frankness that they did in 1994.

Clerks II is not a total disaster. Rosario Dawson was fantastic. But she was so good that she made the acting by O'Halloran and Anderson look so amateurish. And there are some funny scenes, like the argument about The Lord of the Rings or how a racial slur of yesteryear can still evoke a maddening response.

Unfortunately, every one of these moments is quickly surrounded by scenes that go on far too long to be funny. And the donkey scene is just plain wrong.

Having to wait as long as we did for this sequel makes it even more depressing. I felt like the first time I saw Jar Jar Binks after watching the internet for years of any news of Lucas' interest in renewing his franchise.

Too bad.