Friday 20 March 2020

Jay And Silent Bob Reboot (2020) - Movie Review



“Just for the fans” can be a real kiss of death when talking about any form of media, but movies especially. In the mainstream, finding-those-who-share-your-fandom-has-never-been-easier landscape, there is a lot to unpack around the idea of making products for an already-established fanbase. It can range anywhere from ‘let’s keep our customers happy’ to ‘what they say they want and what they actually want aren’t the same thing’, and pretty much every point on that scale has its ugly side.

But it needn’t always be a bad thing. Sometimes, it can be as simple as showing gratitude for audiences that have kept up with your work for years, even decades, and wanting to let them know that you see them. Avengers: Endgame from last year is an excellent example of that in the more positive sense, and while not really on the same wavelength, I’d argue that this film would be another.


I have admitted quite clearly in the past that I’m a die-hard Kevin Smith fanboy, and have been for about as long as I can remember liking anything, so this film is something of a double-edged sword for me. This shows him returning to the View Askewniverse of his early work, in particular Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back which this is a sequel/reboot of. Strike Back, to be quite honest, is one of Smith’s weakest films and something of a masturbatory exercise in the independent filmmaker flexing on how he ‘made it’. In incredibly meta fashion, of course, something that gets boosted tremendously here. Like, to the point where even I’m not that comfortable with all of it.

When Smith described this as “literally the same fucking movie all over again”, he really isn’t kidding. Some of it is out of mild tweaking, like what the ‘girl gang’ looks like now, while the rest of it is pretty much repeating the same gags and riffs from the original. And considering most of those jokes didn’t work even back then, ooh boy, has age not helped them at all. Add to that the aggressive amount of fourth-wall breaks, constant cameos and references to Smith’s other work (which amounts to cute hat-tips to the early stuff, self-flagellation for the more recent efforts), and the constant need to wink at the camera even when removed from those two, it really comes across like what metafictional touches look like to people who absolutely hate them, regardless of position or context.

There’s also how the comedy on display is… unfortunate. I’m not going to call it outright bad, since comedy is subjective and I’m punching above my weight already without trying to define other people’s tastes. However, it has the kind of hit-to-miss ratio where the jokes that actually do land are so sporadic, they feel like they landed by happenstance more than anything else. Which is a real shame because, for my first time seeing Jay & Silent Bob on the big screen, I was primed and ready to get into this. Jay & Silent Bob are up there with Steve-O & Chris Pontius and Colin Mochrie & Ryan Stiles as far as comedy duos that defined my childhood, and it’s not even seeing them a lot older that throws me off; it’s just that it doesn’t work as well as it used to.

But before that unwelcome “man… were these guys ever any good?” feeling kicks in, the film manages to pull a rabbit out of the hat. And even as someone who has followed the Kevin Smith body of work quite intensively, even I didn’t know he’d get into this area. This is basically Kevin Smith in full dad mode, unashamed levels of corniness included. It’s rather fitting that the film’s first real punch of originality, not to mention genuine laughter, comes with the arrival of Miss. Harley Quinn Smith as Jay’s daughter.

This is where the meta quality starts to gel again, as it shows Jay and by extension Jason Mewes as well as Kevin Smith reflecting on their status as fathers, which creates an unexpected amount of weepy moments when Harley Quinn’s Milly and Jay bond. That, and the catch-up with the characters from Chasing Amy, which has one of Ben Affleck’s best performances in years. I am not even remotely kidding; he gives the speech of the film that ties everything together, from the father-daughter relationships throughout to the numerous references to remakes and reboots.

Honestly, it’s the kind of unadulterated heart-warming shit that, for me at least, overrides even the messier moments and brings this film back into the green. It even goes beyond just being feature-length fan-service and shows Smith doing what made for his best work: Using his own life experiences to create genuine art. Knowing that he’s been trying to get Clerks III and Mallrats 2 off the ground for years, this feels like something he’s been itching to get on the big screen for a while now. And as both a fan of his work beforehand, and as someone who’s grown quite fond of these years-removed movie follow-ups that reflect on what came before, I enjoyed this in more legitimate ways than I was expecting.

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