The characters in a Kevin Smith movie love to talk. To them, talking is not just a means of casual communication. It’s an artform. It’s a psychological starting point. It’s the purpose for all human interaction and a skill that too few in the populace ever strive to perfect. Yet as a screenwriter, Smith is known for his excellent dialogue and creative conversations. It’s been his trademark – for better and for worse – for his entire career. Thankfully, Clerks II is no different. This joyous jeer-athon, filled with more dirty-word laden depth and instantly quotable moments than the rest of the summer movie selections combined, is a love letter to the unbridled ecstasy in speaking one’s mind. The sentiments may not always be pleasant, or PC, or practical (Transformers vs. Go-Bots???) but the ability to hear them becomes an odd kind of old fashioned movie magic. Instead of being swept away by a visionary set of images, or a complex, clockwork plot, we find ourselves lost in a world of words – and what a glorious gabfest it is.

As someone who went into this film completely unaware of the entire View Askew universe (know of it, and that’s about it) I was shocked at how well Smith’s insular satire worked. A keen observer of people and personalities, there is never a wrong note in either the way he paints a character, or how these three dimensional individuals listen and respond. From old pros (the original counter jockeys Brian “Dante” O’Halloran and Jeff “Randal” Anderson are back) to excellent new editions (Trevor Fehrman’s fantastic Elias, Rosario Dawson’s dynamic Becky), Smith stays true to the originals format of riffs and rants while adding in something we usually don’t get from this filmmaker’s work. Indeed, during several inspired musical montages, Smith uses The Jackson Five’s “ABC”, The Smashing Pumpkins “1979” and Soul Asylum’s “Misery” to make valid points about the lost of enchantment once maturity steps in and demands you grow up. For an artist known for his limited cinematic skills, these showcase moments really elevate this film beyond the dirty joke ideal.

The profaneness will be what many Smith fans expect, and it’s interesting to see how much the social climate has changed in the 12 years since the initial film. Maybe it’s me, but discussions revolving around going ‘ass to mouth’, bestiality (or as the film insists, ‘interspecies erotica’) and oversized ‘woman parts’ just aren’t as shocking as they once were. Smith himself has said that he finds it fascinating that, this time around, his dialogue only merited an R rating. After all, the original Clerks was slammed with an NC-17 for its raunchy and rude content. Call it the continued mainstreaming of pornography, or the industry coming around to Smith’s way of thinking, but there is nothing really immoral about the conversations in Clerks II. Again, they represent the way real people talk to each other. And whether it’s a debate about Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings or a long involved bit of interpersonal introspection (Dawson and O’Halloran have several sensational scenes together), there is nothing more refreshing than intelligent writing handled by actors perfectly in sync with their scribe.

Apparently, this was the Kevin Smith I was missing. This was the man who millions fawned over while I faked disinterest. This was the filmmaker who used carefully chosen words and phrases to make sense of the generation into which he was born, while I argued he was self-indulgent and inert. Boy, was I wrong. Clerks II easily takes its place as one of the summer’s best, most surprising entertainments, and even tops entries that wanted to blow us away with superheroic deeds and soft soap sentimentality (and now, more than ever, I wish he had been involved in the Superman revamp). In a perfect world, people would see past the blue humor and foul language, the obsession with sex and the exquisite non-sequitors and embrace this filmmaker as the King of Conversations. Few films in recent memory have gotten under my middle-aged skin as effectively as Clerks II. It was one of the few films offered that made the Summer of 2006 tolerable…and memorable.

8 out of 10

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