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Mallrats Customer Reviews (37 - 39 of 59 Reviews)

Underrated Masterpiece.
I certainly agree with the reviewer who said this was the best of "Rentable Smith." I have seen every Jay and Silent Bob movie, from Clerks to Jay and SIlent Bob STrike Back, and have seen every episode of the Clerks animated series cartton show. I am building my collection, and right now have CLerks and Mallrats on DVD, intending to buy Chasing Amy soon.

But anyway, back to Mallrats. This movie is absoloutley hilarious! I actually enjoy this film more than Clerks. Don't get me wrong, Clerks it great, but it really doesn't make me laugh to hard, though it does make me think (something Mallrats doesn't do), and I love the low budget feel of it. I give Clerks 5 stars. However, Mallrats is just a plain more enjoyable romp! Gags every second, hilarious, memorable characters (who could forget Willam desperately trying to see that sailboat!), great lines, great music, and fabulous acting by everyone involved. I'll admit Jeremy London does bad somethimes, but mostly he did fine, and I enjoyed his performance. However, Jason Lee is the one who really steals the show here! What I fine actor. His performance as Brodie should go down in history and be studied in film schools. He's loud, obnoxious, rude, and very, very funny! Shannen Doherty, CLaire Forlani, Michael Rooker, Jason Mewes, Ethan Suplee, all turn in excellent performances, especially Jason Mewes, whose performance as Jay in this film is about three times as funny as in the previous film, although he's different here. In Clerks he was rough, grouchy, foul mouthed and mean. Here, him (and Silent Bob, too) are both lighter and more cartoony, but more funny. Michael Rooker also gives a very special performance. He's scary, but hilarious! And the game show scene is classic!

The DVD rocks! Over one hour of deleted scenes, which includes the film's brilliant original opening that really beats the theatrical one by a mile. I just love the guard looking up and screaming "SNIPER!" You get to learn way more about all the characters involved, and it's very funny. Tons more stuff to be found, all a joy, and with introduction by Kevin Smith and Vincent Periera.

There's also a sweet audio commentary with lots of people, including Smith, Jay Mewes, Scott Mosier, and Ben Affleck. It's a very entertaining commentary, and you can even access live footage from the recording session! Cool.

There's also a music video, and the film's horrible theatrical trailer (no wonder nobody went to see it). You can read cast and crew documents or production notes, and an engaging 20 minute documentary.

The film's presentation is excellent, presented in it's original ratio of 1:85:1 and animorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. The sound is 5.1 surround sound and both are great, but a movie like Mallrats really doesn't need surround sound and the rear speakers are only used once. Still, the movie looks and sound great. After watching Clerks and then going straight to Mallrats, the picture is like WOW! Excellent.

Anyway, Mallrats is great. Buy it now.

The Mallrats DVD
With 150+ reviews of this film, the controversy rages on: Was this film a box-office flop because it was awful, or because Universal & Gramercy screwed up the marketing?

For me, the heart of the matter is that this film was extremely hard to market. As Kevin Smith comments on the DVD, the studio wanted a smart "Porkys" -- a film aimed at youth with frontal nudity and just enough, but not too much, rough language. The demographic for the film was a young audience, but the "R" rating didn't help to fill the theaters.

As with other Kevin Smith productions, this DVD is a work of love. Smith includes many deleted scenes, including the two aborted alternative openings. The running commentary completely fleshes out the production history of the film, and the choices that were made in production. The original opening is shown in the deleted scenes section, and one can see why it fell flat in test screenings -- the plotline with TS as the "rooftop sniper" and the CNN repartee peppered in the rest of the movie was an unfunny dilution of the central story, which added nothing to the central plot development.

Like its predecessor, "Clerks," Mallrats relies on the building of episodic humorous bits, which crescendo into truly brilliant humor, as when Ethan Suplee, completely frustrated that everyone can see the sailboat, but him, verbally explodes at the group of small children, that there is no Easter bunny.

As with Clerks and Chasing Amy, Smith's central theme, as spoken by comic book legend Stan Lee in this film, is that when you find "the one" love of your life, hold on for dear life, or risk eternal regret and disappointment. The verbally-brilliant Jason Lee (Brodie) and straight-man Jeremy London (TS) are the central characters, who conspire through the length of this film, to win back their newly-lost loves, Shannon Daugherty, and Claire Forlani. Some of the humor is flat and sophomoric, but when the great moments of this film arrive, truly great comedy results.

This is a great DVD to study the rescuing of a script, which definitely had problems. Whether Kevin Smith succeeded in that endeavor is the core of the great debate about this film.

Bottom line is that this movie is funny, and a must-see for any Kevin Smith fan. Seeing Joey Lauren Adams prior to her stellar portrayal in Chasing Amy was interesting, and of course, Jay and Silent Bob are a total joy (especially in Silent Bob's attempts to levitate a Marlboro, and Jay's reaction to same). Since Smith's next movie, "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back," is now in production, this movie, along with the other Smith opuses, will soon be required viewing to fully understand the J&SB saga.

More Kevin Smith Humor Than You Can Shake A Stick At
Mallrats is a movie that is made to be a comedy... in other words, don't look for much of a story. After the success of Clerks, Kevin Smith was given big budget support for this follow-up. Unfortunately the results were not good when it came to box office numbers, and Smith returned to his low budget roots after Mallrats bombed. It's still regarded as Smith's funniest movie, and rightfully so, it's hysterical. If you know anything about Star Wars, comic books, video games, etc, then this is your movie. The characters are hilarious and you get to see a young Ben Affleck play a very good villain. The witty dialogue though doesn't feel very realistic, it sounds very scripted in the movie.... the quickfire delivery of Shannon Doherty in the elevator really proves this. This movie was originally supposed to be much different and was re-shot almost completely. I would like to see what was originally intended for Mallrats, but I'm not going to pay the inflated price for the DVD to find out. Yes, the DVD does have a widescreen version and over an hour worth of deleted scenes from the first cut of the movie. I guess the studio figures they can get the fans for the money they didn't spend when Mallrats was in the theater.

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