
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 21, 1995                   TAG: 9510220003
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`MALLRATS' IS A CHEAP WASTE OF TIME

Funny thing about low-budget hits: When their directors get some money and try to repeat their success, somehow the cheapo charm of Hit No.1 just doesn't make it uptown.

Or to the mall, in the case of Kevin Smith's follow-up to ``Clerks,'' the crude but funny take on a day in the life of a convenience store.

``Mallrats,'' made for way more than the $7,000 or so ``Clerks'' reportedly cost, is an uncourageous effort to steal the best parts of its predecessor. The ridiculously stilted dialogue, toilet humor and itty-bitty story were fine for a movie about a convenience store. Its low-budget values just lent authenticity to the movie. And ``Clerks'' pitted a pretty decent guy named Dante - one of the clerks - against his obnoxious buddy who runs the video store next door. Dante keeps arguing the virtues of decency; he's like an oasis of reason in a desert of depravity. So there was something like a conflict for the movie to explore.

In contrast, ``Mallrats'' is one uninterrupted landscape of icky or improbable people doing icky and improbable things to each other in one of America's ickiest inventions: the shopping mall.

Some would argue that T.S. (Jeremy London) is the Dante of ``Mallrats.'' But there's very little similarity. He just wants to get his absolutely wonderful perfectly beautiful girlfriend Brandi back. She's mad at him because he made an idle comment to an overly weight-conscious girl who proceeded to go work out until she dropped dead of exhaustion. And it's all his fault.

So Brandi has to fill in for the dead girl on Brandi's mean dad's dating game show, which just happens to be airing from the mall on this particular day.

T.S. enlists the assistance of his video game-junkie friend Brodie (Jason Lee) in winning back Brandi, which is like asking Andrew Dice Clay to fill you in on the tenets of feminism.

Oh, yeah. Shannen Doherty plays Brodie's girlfriend Rene. So now there is proof that Ms. Doherty is alive, but no proof whatsoever that she can play anything but a kindness-impaired person.

Jay and Silent Bob return as the same characters they played in ``Clerks,'' but the novelty has worn off and ``Mallrats,'' (forgive me) should be exterminated.

Mallrats

1/2* (for one "90210" joke) A Gramercy Pictures release showing at Salem Valley 8. Rated R for bad language, nudity and adult situations. 98 minutes.

by CNB