| 100 |
Film Threat
Mark Bell
Ultimately, Smith finally achieves that perfect balance between humor and heart that he's been dancing towards with all his films.
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| 83 |
Portland Oregonian
Marc Mohan
It mostly manages the impressive feat of mixing jaw-droppingly gross jokes with characters that are worth caring about.
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| 80 |
Empire
Dorian Lynskey
Kevin Smith's most enjoyable film since, well, Clerks lacks much of its predecessor's outsider edge, but you'll probably be laughing too hard to care.
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| 80 |
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Clerks II finds Smith up to the profane, raunchy, profoundly humanist mischief of which he alone is the master. This is a lewd, lascivious, exhilaratingly life-affirming celebration of misfits and the misfits who love them.
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| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Clerks II will find Kevin Smith's detractors saying that the filmmaker simply regurgitates the past, while his loyal fan base will applaud his return to the tried and true.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
This is a funny movie. It delivers plenty of laughs, but it isn't in the same league as "Clerks." I left that movie holding my stomach from laughing so hard.
|
| 75 |
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
An agreeable mischievous romp.
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| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
Dawson turns out to be a necessary ingredient, propelling the emotional core of the film forward, while somehow convincing the audience that a smart, attractive woman could find a schlub like Dante desirable.
|
| 75 |
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
Yes, the characters in Clerks II hardly qualify as role models, but they can be blisteringly funny in an in-your-face, to-heck-with-taste way.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
Despite the film's sloppy structure, it feels weirdly good to hang out with these losers again.
|
| 70 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
It has enough laughs, character arcs, politically incorrect rants and a satisfying emotional ending to more than justify this whim on Smith's part.
|
| 70 |
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
Clerks II has its problems: It rambles into sentimentality, and it doesn't need to -- the movie is more affecting when the characters are just cracking jokes. But Smith, an inherent optimist, has made a movie full of crude humor that also manages to explore the enduring qualities of friendship.
|
| 70 |
Variety
Justin Chang
A softer, flabbier and considerably higher-budgeted follow-up to Kevin Smith's 1994 indie sensation that nevertheless packs enough riotous exchanges and pungent sexual obscenities to make its 97 minutes pass by with ease.
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| 70 |
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
This is the umpteenth movie I’ve seen this year about guys in their 30s who aren't quite sure what they want to do with their lives, and it's the only one that strikes a real chord, because it's neither an exaltation nor a condemnation of slackerdom, but rather just a sweet little fable about how sometimes the life that you think could be so much better is actually pretty damn good already.
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
What makes Clerks II both winning and (somewhat unexpectedly) moving is its fidelity to the original "Clerks" ethic of hanging out, talking trash and refusing all worldly ambition.
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| 67 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
By this point, the rhythms of Smith's dialogue are as predictable and mannered as haikus, and like sitcoms, Clerks II is mostly appealing in its familiarity, from the rat-a-tat cussing to the cameos from Smith's repertory company to the extended riffing on "Star Wars" and geek culture.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
More sentimental and ruder than its predecessor, though its brand of raunch tends to curdle halfway out of the characters' mouths.
|
| 63 |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
If not precisely poetic in its elaborate offensiveness, it's certainly imaginative. Unfortunately, that's not the same as interesting or engaging, unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool fan.
|
| 63 |
New York Post
Kyle Smith
Kevin Smith's Clerks II doesn't take much notice of anything that's happened since the 1994 original. It's occasionally clever and gets a few points for originality.
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| 63 |
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Some of the banter is fun, like Randal's debate with Elias over the relative merits of "Star Wars" vs. "The Lord of the Rings." But most is just trash-talk as shoptalk.
|
| 63 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Best of all, Jason Mewes is out of rehab to play Jay and spar with Smith as Silent Bob, his dope-dealing partner.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
With Clerks II, the director retreats to home turf, but is Smith playing it safe or is he really interested in seeing how the old nabe has changed? Bit of both, actually.
|
| 58 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
The attitude is older, maybe a tad sentimental, and as adolescent and reckless as ever. Whether that's a good thing depends on your appreciation for dead-end conversations, geek debates and the Smithspeak sandbox of creative vulgarity.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
Scott Bowles
It's the crude humor that trips up the movie.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
Andrea Gronvall
In place of the sharply etched observational humor of the original, which featured a host of no-name actors in memorably quirky performances, we now get mostly raunch and some flaccid cameos from Smith cronies Ben Affleck and Jason Lee.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Feels a little like the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- a similar wet fizzle of a sequel for sequel's sake -- but what do we know?
|
| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
While these individually diverting factors add up to a good time, they don't add up to a good movie.
|
| 50 |
Premiere
Melissa Farrar
Part of the Clerks charm was that Kevin Smith made it for $27,000, and a bigger budget doesn't really help this kind of tale's authenticity.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
Robert Wilonsky
Clerks II can't bear the strain of its amateur-hour theatrics, no matter how big its heart or how many crocodile tears it manages to squirt. The dramatic moments become melodramatic; the bawdy moments turn icky. The fans will eat it up.
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