MALLRATS
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 1995 Christopher Null
Well, the long-awaited MALLRATS is here at last, and sadly, the perfect twentysomething romantic comedy has still yet to be made. Writer/director Kevin Smith follows up his hilarious first film, CLERKS, with this, the second in his so-called New Jersey Trilogy. It's second not only in sequence, but a distant also-ran in quality, too.
MALLRATS tells the story of two mostly-losers, T.S. (Jeremy London) and Brodie (Jason Lee), who manage to lose and regain their respective girlfriends, Brandi (Claire Forlani) and Rene (Shannen Doherty), in one long day at the mall. Along the way, the pair has a series of big adventures with cops and security guards, a game show organized by Brandi's dad (Michael Rooker), comic book creator Stan Lee, and the returning characters of Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith himself). Where all this was supposed to go, I'm not too sure. But I *think* it was supposed to be about relationships, and I think it was supposed to be funny.
For the most part, it's not. Surprisingly, it's Jason Lee (who moves into his first acting role from a career as a professional *skateboarder*) who has all the good lines, and those are few and far between. Gone is Smith's witty and smartly lascivious dialogue from CLERKS. Instead, the MALLRATS script often sounds more like mindless smut with only a few bright moments of real farcical entertainment.
MALLRATS probably wouldn't be so painful if I didn't know what Smith was capable of doing (and with a lot less funding, to boot). This film comes off as little more than random bits of plot and failed attempts at humor: Doherty parading about in her first appearance outside the 90210 ZIP code, Smith's strange homage to Stan Lee, Silent Bob's magic coat, slapstick, sex jokes, and a completely inexplicable orangutan.
I don't know what Smith was thinking when this project came together, but let's just hope this is just the proverbial Sophomore slump. Kev, I know you can do better than this.
RATING: **1/2
\-------------------------------\ |* Unquestionably awful | |** Sub-par on many levels | |*** Average, hits and misses | |**** Good, memorable film | |***** Perfection | \-------------------------------\
-Christopher Null / null@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu -Movie Emporium (archives) / http://www.notes.tpoint.net/emporium/ -Contributing Editor, FEEDBACK / http://www.eden.com/~feedback -E-mail requests to join the movie review mailing list
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