Jay & Silent Bob Reboot

Clerks 2 was brilliant. Everything after that has been one terrible film worse than the last. Please stop. You are destroying your own legacy with these outings. Love you man. Now rest and do something else. Please.

Its okay to put the dope down. Kev must have thought this was funnier than it was. The ending is better than the whole movie so stay for the credits.

The positives:

Lots of callbacks for diehard fans Some excellent cameos Some decent jokes Nerdy references

The negatives:

Harley Quinn Smith Jokes that don't land Jason Mewes' distracting mouth The acting The wafer thin plot The writing in the 3rd act

Following his near-death heart attack, Kevin Smith self-finances a film that redefines self-indulgence. A film in which he casts his friends and family, and not only allows you to catch up with characters from his previous films, but is impenetrable to anyone without a working knowledge of them.

Having learned that Hollywood is planning a reboot of "Bluntman and Chronic" a failed superhero franchise from a decade past. Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) must again cross the country from New Jersey to California to stop the movie, based on themselves, from being made. A chance encounter has Jay reunite with Justice (Shannon Elizabeth) who informs him that he has a daughter, Millennium (Harley Quinn Smith).

If, by any chance, you're planning on watching this movie having not previously watched the films that make up Smith's view-askew-niverse, just don't. 'Impenetrable' really is the right word, character's come and go without explanation, many lines are call backs to something that happened, or was said in one of the previous movies and without that back knowledge I'm not sure that the film would even make sense to you. This is not to say that with that prior knowledge, the film is brilliant, or good, or even passable. The flaws are apparent, even to those of us that do have it. The performances are generally poor, the story is weak (even if you accept the meta-commentary aspect of the film rebooting "strike back") and most of the jokes don't land. It is a tick box exercise in seeing a character, or actor again, with everything else hung around that. I'm so happy that Jason Mewes is still alive to be in the film that this seems like a churlish comment, but his dentures bend his lips into such an odd pout I kept thinking that it was someone else and it was a constant distraction.

However. As it came to an end - I found I couldn't bring myself to actually hate it. There was just enough in the moments with Ben Affleck, Chris Hemsworth, Stan Lee, Millie's interactions with Jay and the stuff at Chronic-con to drag the score up a little and make me look forward to, when hopefully shorn of quite as much indulgence, "Clerks 3" and "Mallrats 2" see the light of day.

I'll open with the simple fact that if you're not familiar with Kevin Smith's body of work, don't bother with this one. Every joke and reference will fly over your head. Having said that...

I actually went to a roadshow screening of this with Smith and Jason Mewes in attendance. Even with seeing those two live and getting a sweet intro, the movie just didn't do it for me. At the same time when it points a finger at the reboot model of Hollywood and mocks it, this movie falls into the same traps as bad reboots. If it were a clever take on the reboot model (22 Jump Street), that would be a different story altogether but instead it's just the same plot all over again with the same jokes all over again. That might be the most disappointing thing about this movie, the comedy. While there were moments I was laughing, so many of the intended jokes were either references to old jokes from Smith's previous films or line for line repeated jokes. This movie isn't Smith saying, "hey! I came up with some new jokes for these old characters" more than it's him saying, "remember all these jokes that were funny 20 years ago? Well....here they are again!" I will call out one scene where I thought to myself, "I wish the movie was as good as this scene" and that's the scene with Ben Affleck reprising his role of Holden McNeil. That scene was funny, heartfelt and concise. Flashes of the Kevin Smith of old with dialogue. While there is more heart in this story than the first Jay and Silent Bob movie, it's handled with the same subtlety as the comedy, beating you over the head with it. Overall, I will say that if you love Kevin Smith's filmography and cherish every one of those films, go see this movie and laugh your ass off. If you're hoping that this movie is Smith's return to form, you'll be greatly disappointed. It's a Kevin Smith's Greatest Hits Tour, the question is, "how much do you like his music?"