 Hot off the success of 1994's Clerks, Kevin Smith is back just one year later with 1995's Mall Rats. A movie I had never seen before that has since been rectified and today I'm going to talk to you about it. Mall Rats is definitely a time capsule film, a product of its era. This is a movie that most kids today won't be able to connect to on many different levels. From a lot of the movie and comic book references to the fashion in the film, or the fact that they're just hanging out at a mall. That's not really a thing kids do anymore. And man do I miss it. And this movie gave me some good feels. Now did I love it? Well we're going to get to that in a second. But first I want to give a shout out to Mint Salad. She's a movie critic as well, has a YouTube channel you can check out at your leisure. Good stuff over there. And I really appreciate the support she's shown to the channel by being a Mithril Patreon member at patreon.com slash adamdoesmovies for just $30. So thanks again Mint. Let's talk Mall Rats. Kevin Smith has built a series of films that are in his universe, the Askew universe. And I believe this is one of the earlier ones. Now this came out in 95 a year after Clerks, but I believe chronologically it's set sometime before. There are a couple references to that film, a couple characters are mentioned. I miss some I'm sure that others have that are hardcore fans. I've only seen these films once each and a lot of the Kevin Smith catalog has still yet to be unearthed by me. And I will say between these two films I think Clerks is better. I like that black and white charming little indie flick. That's not to say Mall Rats is bad. Quite the contrary, I found myself laughing quite a bit during this flick. I won't say it's amazing by any means, but it's a solid movie. It's a solid comedy that goes a little bit more crazy than the previous offering. This is a very grounded film that's probably due to budget restraints. Mall Rats is a lot crazier. There's more antics, there's more shenanigans, there's more set pieces in general. And I found that to be okay. I prefer Clerks because I love the witty dialogue that the characters bounce off of each other. And there's plenty of that in Mall Rats, but in between those moments are a lot of slapstick humor, mostly centering around Michael Rooker's character. The first 10 minutes of this movie are terrible. It takes place at a college campus, but there was clearly no budget, so it's all shot in one tiny little location with a setup table and a couple characters just falling all over the place. It's not funny. And I was just watching this thinking, what the fuck happened between Clerks to Mall Rats? Thankfully, after this awkward, cumbersome intro, we do get some good comedy as our leads finally are together. And that's TS Quint and Brody. These two gentlemen have been dumped on the same day by their girlfriends, and they need to recover, they need to recuperate, and the only way they know how is by taking a nice trip to the mall. It's here where we're going to be reintroduced to Jay and Silent Bob, who have a much larger role this time around. I was actually shocked by how little they were in Clerks. Here they're utilized to full effect, and I have to say I like them quite a bit in this movie. We also have Shannon Doherty as Renee, Claire Ferlani as Brandy, and Renee Zellweger, I mean Joy Lauren Adams as Gwen. Only for me, Gwen is not in this movie very much because she has that baby talking voice that I just really can't stand, and any more than the five or so minutes of speaking lines she has would have been just too much for me. I don't think I could have handled it. She does also have some tasteful nudity, so that helps a little bit. And we can't forget Ben Affleck, who shows up as Shannon on occasion to kick the crap out of Jason Lee and just be an all around douchebag. It was always fun to see Stan Lee show up in the MCU movies, but Kevin Smith was doing it first with his universe, because we have a cameo here too. The plot of Mall Rats is pretty basic. Michael Rooker's character, Svenine, is putting on this new show event at the mall. It's a televised singled out style show. Remember singled out with Jenny McCarthy? I'm young. I'm in touch. It's something like that where there's going to be three contestants and his daughter is actually going to choose between them. Jay and Silent Bob were in the mix to try to shut this thing down. While that's happening, Brody and T.S. are talking comics. They're talking movies, how to make the story a success, and just all around deep thinking college level commentary. I'm being sarcastic. Again, this movie is going to speak to you a little bit more. Probably going to get more enjoyment out of it if you grew up around the malls. If you were around that scene, your parents dropped you off on a Saturday. You spent the day with your buddies, getting an orange Julius, hanging out at the food court, or having a debate about what is actually the food court and what is just a one-off pretzel store that doesn't count, grabbing a slice of zah, heading on over to the Barnes & Noble or whatever they called the bookstore there, trying to find the magazine with the most scantily clad women in it. But most importantly, hanging out with your buds, talking about life, talking about the problems we each have, sharing in the camaraderie of our fellow man. Mallrats does that to an extent. I wish they would have leaned further into that. More of the clerk-style dialogue with some of the funny references and the commentary on mall life itself. From a production standpoint, this isn't doing anything impressive in the slightest. It's also not doing anything insulting. It's pretty by the book standard stuff. Again, I lean more towards clerks because there's a style to that film. This is just kind of, eh, it's fine, it's colorful, it's decent enough, but nothing's wowing me. We have some okay punk music in this as well. Again, all around it's a step down for me, but still a fun watch and easily something I could re-watch and appreciate some of the humor. All right, those are my thoughts on Mallrats. Thanks again to Min Salad. Check out her channel. And if you've seen this film or if you love it to death, let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Like this video if you had a good time. Please think about joining Patreon at patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies. There's a $1 tier, $10 all the way up to 100. If you really want to support me, that'd be great. You can also do the same thing right here on YouTube via the join button, the same perk supply. If you don't have the cash or you just don't have the care, that's fine. Just hit the subscribe button at least. It's free, costs you nothing. And maybe throw a like if you're feeling extra generous. I would appreciate it. All right, I'll catch you next time.