Clerks 2

In Clerks 2, Jeff Anderson plays Randal, one of the film's many characters who seem to lack a sense of purpose.

Herald rating: * *

Since his 1994 micro-budget debut Clerks made him a hero of American indiedom, director-writer Kevin Smith has made exactly one other good movie. This belated sequel to that breakthrough isn't it.

The good film was 1997's Chasing Amy. While the rest - Mallrats, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl - have maintained Smith's position as a star of Gen-X film nerd-dom. That's fitting, considering the main theme to variously crude, talky, self-referential, pop culture-obsessed, low-energy and increasingly sappy films is that of arrested adolescence.

Talk of which brings us back to Clerks 2, where the former convenience store clerks Dante (Ricky Gervais lookalike O'Halloran) and Randal (Anderson) have wound up in their early 30s working McJobs at a New Jersey burger franchise.

Dante has an exit strategy - he's soon off to Florida with his ambitious wife-to-be Emma. Only he's still got a thing for the place's manager, Becky (Dawson).

Meanwhile, Randal's gift for obnoxious behaviour and thinking everything is stupid has only improved over the years (though Anderson's acting hasn't). And of course Smith's resident sideshow Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself) are out in the carpark selling drugs after doing time in rehab.

Given all that, yes, it has its moments. It also has one stand-out performance from young Trevor Fehrman as burger worker Elias, a young Christian Lord of the Rings and Transformers nut who's sheer effortless geekiness is the film's best entertainment.

And that's counting the argument over which is the better film trilogy between LOTR and Smith's beloved Star Wars, as well as the finale which comes with the soon-to-be-infamous bestiality scene.

But it's largely rambling and only fitfully funny, throwing in music montages and a dance sequence in an effort to shake itself out of its self-induced stupor.

It's one thing for Clerks 2 to bring back a bunch of characters who share a mutual lack of a sense of purpose. But the film itself shouldn't go out in sympathy.

Verdict: Ever wondered what happened to the guys from 1994's Clerks? No, this sequel doesn't really care either

Cast: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson
Director: Kevin Smith
Rating: R16, sexual references, offensive language
Running time: 97 mins
Screening: Village, Hoyts