I'll Be Blunt - it's Chronic (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (DVD))

Member Name: MykReeve

Product:	Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (DVD)
Date:	07/12/01 (126 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some amusing parodies, Surprising cameos

Disadvantages: Exceptionally juvenile humour, Self-indulgent, Predictable jokes, Slow pacing until Jay and Silent Bob get to Hollywood, One joke expanded out to fill 100 minutes

It's unusual for me to go to the cinema with low expectations, and then have the film fail to meet even those low expectations. This is precisely what happened when I went to see 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' however.

I've been a fan of Kevin Smith's films for several years now. I loved 'Clerks' and even 'Mallrats', I thoroughly enjoyed 'Chasing Amy', and I really liked 'Dogma'. All of these films involved, to a greater or lesser extent, the characters Jay and Silent Bob (played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith himself); a couple of marijuana-smoking dealers who hang about outside a minimart in New Jersey. Silent Bob is largely silent throughout most of the films, only generally speaking at a crucial moment in the plot to offer a relevant plot exposition. Jay, however, suffers from a particularly profane case of verbal diarrhoea.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the characters' parts in 'Clerks' and 'Mallrats'. They were largely incidental to the plots of both films, only cropping up occasionally to inject some brief comic interludes. In 'Chasing Amy', they appeared even more briefly, right at the end, so that Silent Bob could deliver a verbose plot-relevant anecdote - an anecdote which is referred to in 'J&SBSB'. However, it was in 'Dogma' that I finally began to tire of the characters. The characters' involvement in the plot of that film is crucial, meaning that Jay's juvenile profanity-laden diatribes occurred throughout the movie, rapidly becoming tiresome.

'Dogma' was, despite this, saved by having a great cast of additional characters and a strong story, which kept the viewers' attention, and made the film enjoyable. 'Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back', however, is exclusively driven by these two characters, with only an incidental and superficial plot bolted on, in order to shift the characters from one imp
lausible encounter to the next. The result is a shambolic mess of a film, punctuated by sub-'Road Trip' humour, which is only partially rescued by the references to other films (particularly Smith's own).

THE PLOT

Well, as you've gathered from the above, there really isn't much of a plot, to speak of. Jay and Silent Bob discover from Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee's character in 'Mallrats') that the comic characters based on them (Bluntman and Chronic) are to be the subjects of a new feature film. So, they go to see comic writer Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck's character in 'Chasing Amy'), who tells them that he has sold the rights to Bluntman and Chronic to the comic's co-creator, Banky Edwards (Jason Lee's character in 'Chasing Amy'). He also shows them the advance word on the internet about the movie, which is profoundly negative...

So, Jay and Silent Bob head across America from New Jersey to Hollywood to stop the film, and thereby stop their negative publicity on the web, encountering a series of cameos from Hollywood's great and good...

THE FILM

Essentially, this is your standard run-of-the-mill road trip story - two characters struggle to get from one place to another, encountering all manner of unlikely events en route. Their journey across America takes up the large part of the film, and is largely driven by the characters' encounters with peculiar individuals.

These encounters are predictable and largely humourless - for example, their first encounter on the road is with George Carlin, who plays a hitch-hiker, and introduces Jay and Silent Bob to the unwritten "Book of the Road", which states that hitch-hikers only get rides by offering oral sex. Inevitably, Jay and Silent Bob are offered a ride by a nun, played by Carrie Fisher, who asks our intrepid travellers if they live their lives "by the book", with predictable conseque
nces.

This pretty much sets the tone for the standard of humour we can expect throughout. It's odd, in some ways, Smith's humour seems to have been toned down for this film, compared to some of his earlier works - restricting itself to a series of childish flatulence and homophobic jokes, rather than anything remotely cerebral.

This does, to a certain extent, reflect the cartoonish slapstick nature of the characters... which goes some way to explaining why they were best confined to brief scenes in earlier films. Throughout the film, Smith's actions are accompanied by overdubbed sound effects, which are ridiculous and soon get boring and irritating to endure. Jay's babblings and obsession with profanity for the sake of swearing soon get tiresome - every other word being "f-ck" is amusing when it's used sparingly, but after 100 minutes, you'll be praying for him stop.

As if this weren't enough, the "breaking the fourth wall" technique, where characters look into the audience is used throughout the film. Funny once, not funny three times. It almost seems as though Kevin Smith is pleading with the audience to forgive him for his shameless self-promotion and humourless sprawling mess of a movie.

The references to the internet accurately seem to reflect the mixed responses that Smith's films receive on internet newsgroups. Several characters make reference to the fact that some people seem to just go on the internet solely to complain about films... not strictly true, Kevin, we go on the internet to complain about bad films, like this one - you didn't hear me complain about 'Dogma', did you?

In any case, once Jay and Silent Bob reach Hollywood, the film does pick up somewhat - the pacing increases, other characters are introduced, and the film's comedy doesn't exclusively revolve around Jay's penis (just mostly). One the film's funniest scenes invo
lve Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, appearing as themselves on the set of 'Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season', discussing their film careers to date, and warming up. Another of my favourite scenes involved Jason Biggs (the pie-f-cker from 'American Pie') and James Van Der Beek ('Dawson's Creek').

There are numerous references to other films throughout - quite apart from those to Smith's other films, there's 'Platoon', 'Scream', 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Charlie's Angels', 'Planet of the Apes', 'The Matrix', 'Hannibal', oh, and just tons of others... To be honest, this was the most entertaining thing about the film, Smith loves movies, and it was nice to see him incorporate so many references.

As ever with a Kevin Smith film, it's worth staying until the end of the credits. After the 'Blues Brothers' finale, the credits roll to the accompaniment of the appropriately humourless 'I Got High' by Afroman, ending with the usual long list of Smith's acknowledgements, and a final scene involving a character from the end of 'Dogma'... you'll see which one when you watch it...

As regards the acting, Jason Mewes has now completely mastered Jay, delivering his profanity-laden, slurred lines plausibly and believably... even if they do get tiresome awfully quickly. Kevin Smith confesses himself that he "can't act", and his efforts in this film add further support to that admission.

Shannon Elizabeth (the leggy Nadia from 'American Pie') plays Justice, one of the characters Jay and Silent Bob meet en route, puts in a pretty wooden, but adequate performance - let's be honest, half the audience aren't going to be watching her acting, anyway. Ali Larter, Eliza Dushku and Jennifer Schwalbach play Justice's decorous travelling companions, and provide great eyecandy.

Will Ferrell appears
at regular intervals as Federal Wildlife Marshall Willenholly, essentially as slapstick comic relief from Jay's continual swearing, and delivers his lines ineptly and awkwardly, sucking out what little comedy there might have originally been in them.

CONCLUSIONS

'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' is unrepentently juvenile and self-indulgent. A fan of Kevin Smith expecting an intelligent and well-constructed comedy to rival his previous works will be disappointed by the poor storyline and weak, juvenile comedy that make up this film. If nothing else, this movie proves that Smith was right to limit the characters' involvement in his earlier films.

The film is, however, rendered watchable in the final half-hour, by the sheer number of cameos and references to other movies, once Jay and Silent Bob reach Hollywood. The cameo actors' willingness to make fun of themselves on-screen does provide some entertainment. In fact, only one line from the film has stuck in my mind - James Van Der Beek's slight on Jason Biggs that he "wouldn't last a day on the Creek!"

Kevin Smith has already said that his next film will be a complete 180 from 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back' - presumably to try to appease the fans that he has so severely disappointed with this humourless shambles.

Summary: