(Random aside, lol: I love how I just watched two movies back-to-back whose respective titles begin with Q and Z …)

Well, I can’t complain much here. This is at least the kind of movie that I kind of like even if they’re awful – being as I am quite the Kevin Smith fan boy errgirl, listening to the SModcast, watching the evening-withs, occasionally checking in on his blog, and lover of about 90% of his output, it’s nice when he does something less than brilliant and I’m able to point it out thus proving I’m not entirely brainwashed.

I was looking forward to this merely because I look forward to anything this guy does, and only now does it strike me as odd that I held back on my anticipation; afterall, I expected Clerks II to be a much lesser movie not only than its original but also of Smith’s previous production, the one that everyone else hated, Jersey Girl … and was ultimately very pleasantly surprised indeed. I guess it was other factors that turned me off here – I don’t find the title funny, clever, exciting, or any of that stuff for one (though the poster is cute); Seth Rogan has never particularly thrilled me; and these days I kind of get my Smith fix, as I said, from the evening-with DVDs and the SModcast. If he’s not gonna make another Dogma, I’d kinda be perfectly happy if that he didn’t make anything at all.

But here’s where I think I’ve gotta give him credit. ‘Cos at least he didn’t try making something more complicated, because if he had, it would’ve been a mess. It’s clear from listening to him every week via iTunes that this is a guy who is pretty darn happy with where he is in his life, raising a daughter, geeking out over other people’s movies, and doing the SModcast which has frankly become something of an achievement in itself. He doesn’t need to make any more movies. What he’s done here is make something incredibly simple, with instant appeal to a certain majority of his fans: and for what it’s intended to be, he’s done it well. There is nothing fancy at all here, none of the surprises I’ve been particularly fond of in his last few movies like the song and dance number in Clerks II or the Sweeney Todd scene in Jersey Girl. The most surprising moment to behold here is a blink and you’ll miss it WTF, to be sure (“She just frosted me like a f**kin’ cake!”) but it’s also (I hope) as unsophisticated as Smith is gonna get (that probably doesn’t make any sense but it does to me, lol).

Is it his worst movie to date? I think I can say without taking a breath, absolutely yes. But it surprises me that that’s the worst thing I have to say about it. I think even if I weren’t a Kevin Smith fan at all, I’d struggle to find a bad thing to say about it, especially in a year (yes, I’m probably gonna keep on saying it till I see some more good) that has been so disappointing. It made me laugh, it made me feel a little cosy with its cheesy happy ending (no tears though). Seth Rogen is the biggest surprise of all, perhaps – basically turning in an almost spot-on imitation of Smith himself (I adore his fascination at the reunion that gay people “fight, like real people!”), I could hardly believe this warm character was the same guy I hated people for loving in things like Knocked Up and Superbad.

(oh my god, somebody put balloons up – I think I got my writing brain back!! ROFL)

Tags: coffee, comedy, porn, sex

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 11:47 pm and is filed under 3 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.