Ten years ago best friends Dante Hicks and Randal Graves were New Jersey mini-mall clerks still slacking off together in their early 20s. Now working in the fast-food universe, Dante and Randal have managed to maintain, and even hone, their in-your-face attitudes, agile skill with vulgarities and unbridled love of screwing the customers. But they're also faced with such shocking prospects as marriage, leaving Jersey and finding real careers. Dante and Randal invade the world of Mooby's fast food restaurant, where the slogan is "I'm Eating It." Behind the counter, where the only other employees are an uber-nerd and an entirely too sexy manager, Dante and Randal are free to offend anybody and everybody who so much as orders fries in their inimitably irreverent way. But, even as riotous debates rage between them over such burning matters as George Lucas v. Peter Jackson v. Jesus, change is on the horizon. When Dante announces that he's going to leave Jersey forever and marry Emma Bunting, Randal plots a going-away party so shocking it will draw the police, the fire department and potential protests from PETA, while altering their lives forever.

Your either a fan of Kevin Smith or your not there really is no middle ground when it comes to Smith’s humor and wit. I would never suggest a Kevin Smith movie to someone who is trying to live a rated G life in an X-rated world. Much like radio shock jock Howard Stern, Kevin Smith knows who is audience is and does not care about those who may not like his humor, he is making movies for himself and his fans and not the critics or the nay Sayers who might think he goes to far. I personally love Kevin Smith he has a way to say things and express that fit our world not what we want it to be. The angry young man with no ambition who finds it has led to a life of no accomplishments and now is bitter as well as angry. To find peace in this, to know that not everybody can be rock gods or movie stars, a life that no longer harbors the dreams of groupies and fame and fortune but rather has found what really matters in life a place that you can call your own, someone who you can love and be loved by. Amidst all the outrageous and obscene humor there is a lesson there, there is a moral there, there is the simple fact of what life is and what life can become which makes Clerks II possibly better than the first one.

The first Clerks is about youth and dreams and anger at the world, a life without ambition and what we want to do with life. The sequel deals with the fact that the best things in life are the small things, the love we make and the life that we lead rather than the life we had wished we could have. Each movie is different, each movie is its own and each movie speaks of different stages of life. Clerks II fits in perfectly with the movie and if it’s the end it was a great end. Even our friend Jay has grown up, the child in all of us, the trouble maker with no cares. Life moves on and so do we, how we do it is all up to us, with grace or with resistance each person needs to find their own way.

I love Kevin Smith’s wit, his ability to break down the most complex of situations into crude and obscene banter. His pot shots at pop culture, his cruel look at a life lost and his ability to make you laugh are why he has a cult following and is not really that main stream. The scenes may be crude, the wit may be biting but beneath it all is the world we live in rather you want to accept it or deny it. Laugh out loud, live, and love what more can I say.

As the films have evolved over the years Jay and Silent Bob have become bigger characters than they were to begin with, instead of the backdrops they are almost the stars now. So it is fitting that we get to see more of Jay and Silent Bob in Clerks 2, these are the characters who we remember and love although I have always wish I could be more like Randal. Jeff Anderson’s character and his deadpan timing are a thing of beauty. He represents that side of us for those who have ever worked with the public of laying into the customer. He is irresponsible, he is crude and obscene and he could care less. His life is the life he has always wanted and few can say that. Dante on the other hand is the dreamer side of us, someone who wants to lift beyond what holds us down, I never wanted to be Dante. Rosario Dawson is almost seamless in her addition to the crew and another character you can feel and understand. Someone has to flip the burgers, someone has to man the register its just rarely done with as much humor and laughs that Clerks and Clerks II has given us.

Grade: A-