Silent Bob strikes out

This movie should have never been made. Like Jay-Z announcing the Black album was his last, Kevin Smith assured fans he was done with his Jersey crew after "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." Both Smith and Jay-Z should have known when to fade to black.\nThere's no reason to make "U.S. Marshalls" 15 years after "The Fugitive," and even less reason to bring back Jay and Randall a dozen years later for one more trip to the Quik Stop.\nThe original "Clerks" is wonderful. Made for under $30,000 in black and white, the humor is biting, offensive and captures the 90's malaise and ambivalence of early 20s guys. \n"Clerks II," on the other hand, ends with the line, "Today is the first day of the rest of our lives," with no sense of irony. It's that bad.\nIt's the second worst Kevin Smith movie. "Jersey Girl" is absolute Hollywood schlock without an interesting scene or idea. "Clerks II" is right above "Jersey Girl" on the Smith totem poll hovering two feet off the ground. A hundred feet up the poll are "Mallrats," "Dogma," "Chasing Amy" and "Clerk" wondering how Smith could go so soft in his old age. \nIn an excruciatingly long behind-the-scenes on the second disc, Smith said he had the idea to start the movie with the Talking Heads song "Nothing but Flowers" and end with the boys owning the Quik Stop. All he had to do was write the middle hour and a half. And he did so by inserting a pathetic love triangle, lame Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings geek arguments and sex with a donkey. \nWhat makes this movie so bad is, well, a lot of things. It's predictable, but above all, else Smith has lost his ability to be cutting edge. His donkey sex and "porch monkey" jokes teeter on the edge of being offensive or shocking, but they produce few laughs.\nThe 2-disc DVD is packed with extras like three commentaries, deleted scenes, but more of a bad thing is bad. Even the bloopers are boring. \nThere was a Clerks cartoon that was quite good, worked on a lot of levels, and captured the spirit and hilarity of the original. But for now, Smith has got to figure out what made his movies so enjoyable, how to write a good love story like "Chasing Amy," and stop Jay and Silent Bob from making me nod off throughout "Clerks II. "\nIf these are the movies he chooses to make, Kevin Smith's whole perspective is whack. Maybe I'll love him when he fades to black.