More Woebegone Films from Kevin Smith

I can’t tell what Kevin Smith is doing. I mean, why would someone who obviously has oodles of talent make schlock like Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back? It could have been good, though. After all, it chronicles the two Quick Stop hangouts that have been ubiquitous since Clerks, who, incidentally, made some of the funniest scenes in that early film. I’m sure they will even be a major part of Smith’s new one, The Passion of the Clerks, which is set to come out this year.

Basically, the Bluntman and Chronic strip has been sold to Miramax, and Jay and Silent Bob have to stop it. Why? Because people are using this newfangled thing called the In-ter-net to comment on how stupid the characters are. So they have to travel from New Jersey (bold move, Smith!) to Hollywood, falling in love and causing mischief along the way. It’s a plot as preposterous as Bluntman and Chronic itself. In fact, it all seems to be a ruse to show Hollywood that it “had it coming,” as the tagline suggests, because there are intermittent spurts of movie parody that verge on becoming no different from Scary Movie or any other parody of film. These spots are probably the weakest in the film, too, offering absolutely nothing new.

The whole thing makes me question why Kevin Smith made this piece of drivel. The only redeeming feature is the charisma of Kevin Smith himself, aka Silent Bob. His little quirks are quite endearing, and he reminds me more and more of one of my friends who recently moved to Austin. Just some of Smith’s gestures make him charming, smart, and humourous, too. These really are funny guys, but a bunch of profanity does not make for a good movie. Yes, I think the number of times the f-word is used is ridiculous. Come on, Smith, South Park did it first, so there’s no use in trying to outdo the amount of profanity you can fit into 90 minutes. At the end, one of the characters says that Hollywood turned Bluntman and Chronic into one big gay joke, and heck, that’s all this movie is, too!

Which screams self-referentiality! Jay and Silent Bob makes the most references to itself as a movie than any other film I have seen. It doesn’t do it subtly, either. In case you don’t catch some of the references, characters actually look at the camera to remind you that you’re watching them in a movie. It’s not like The Simpsons, where a character makes a statement, “There’s never anything good on Fox,” and then they move on. Here, they make that kind of statement, pause, and glare at the camera, before moving on to say whatever it is they’re getting at (which is generally nothing, by the way). But even the plot appears self-referential, too. People talk about how dumb Jay and Silent Bob are? No, when would people ever do that? Should I expect these two guys to show up at my door and kick my ass, like they do in the movie?

If this film references itself so many times, does that mean that Kevin Smith made the film he meant to make? I sure hope not. Yes, there are really funny parts, but they’re also very stupid. It’s as if Kevin Smith wanted to make his own Dumb and Dumberer. I hear that he made the movie on $20 million, which means that all of the famous actors basically volunteered to be in the movie. Are they happy with the product? Was Kevin Smith happy with the product?

After watching Clerks for the first time (see one of my previous blogs), I was ready to give Kevin Smith his due. But now, I’m not so sure. And Jersey Girl is sitting on my counter just waiting to go in the machine…

Grade for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: 4