Review of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) by Bassbait T — 18 Jun 2010

Now, With Too Much Fourth Wall-Breaking!

The great challenge in making this movie was Kevin Smith's propensity for reusing actors. Brandon Lee played two characters, both prominent from earlier in the Askewniverse--Azrael would obviously not be available for a cameo! Ben Affleck played his prominent Askewniverse character, Holden McNeil, as well as himself. Both George Carlin and Chris Rock were back as new and different characters. (Alas, with Carlin, there will be no third appearance.) In fact, had the events at the end of [i]Dogma[/i] not taken place, Ben Affleck could have actually played a third character. A lot of directors have stables; I read a column a while ago about iconic actor/director pairings, and while I don't agree with all of them, you can't argue that Johns Wayne and Ford worked together an awful lot. Johnny Depp has worked for Tim Burton a time or two. And so forth. But the issue here is that Kevin Smith's films interconnect into a larger universe. When he uses his wife, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, as a different character in each of four movies, he creates the possibility that they will have to interact at some point, which is difficult to film. When Spielberg uses Tom Hanks or Herzog used Klaus Kinski, these problems did not arise.

Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself) are back to dealing in front of the Quick Stop after their adventures in trying to find and deal in Shermer, Illinois. Randal (Jeff Anderson) and Dante (Brian O'Halloran) actually get a restraining order against them, leaving them in a sort of existential dilemma. Obsessive comic book fan and store owner Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) tells them that Banky Edwards (Lee again) has sold the rights to make a Bluntman and Chronic comic book to Miramax, and why haven't they gotten any money from that? They go to Holden (Affleck, as I said), who long since sold Banky his share of the characters and can't help them. He introduces them to the internet, on which people are saying horrible things about them. They decide the way to stop this is to stop the filming of the movie. This, of course, involves a trip to Hollywood. They have no money for bus tickets, so they hitchhike. This involves a quartet of international jewel thieves, a stolen orangutan, and an irritating federal wildlife marshal (Will Ferrell, alas). Because why not.

The problem is that the movie spends too much time nudging you in the side. It stops being clever very quickly. Okay, the Buddy Christ on Carrie Fisher's dashboard is cute, and I've always wished I had one of my own. I am also inclined to wonder why the events of [i]Dogma[/i] didn't have as much of an effect on the boys. I think I mentioned this before, but I'm not at all sure how Mooby keeps going so smoothly after the death of its entire board of directors, save one. (Maybe it's one of the things God set right at the end?) However, too many characters look directly at the camera to punch in the fact that they've just said something relevant to real-world events. Affleck and Damon mentioning obliquely that they owe Kevin Smith a favour? Leaving aside that, apparently, [i]Dogma[/i] is a movie in this universe despite Jay's referencing its events in [i]Clerks II[/i], if you don't know that Smith brought the script of [i]Good Will Hunting[/i] to Miramax's attention, all you're left with is wondering what favour they owed him. Okay, the moment when the movie stops to point out that the villain in the movie-within-a-movie is played by Mark Hamill and that you should applaud is cute. Showing Gus Van Sant counting money rather than directing? Rather less so. Let it be understated, like Judd Nelson--former denizen of Shermer, as we all know--playing the sheriff completely deadpan.

It also feels very much as though Smith knew he wanted to get Jay and Silent Bob to Hollywood over the Bluntman and Chronic movie, but he didn't think he had enough plot there for a 104-minute movie. In this, he does himself an injustice; the original [i]Clerks[/i] didn't really have a plot, either. The Amazing Colossal Episode guide for [i]Mystery Science Theater 3000[/i] sums up the film [i]City Limits[/i] by saying that, while a lot of stuff happens, it is nevertheless a boldly plotless movie. This is, in context of that movie, a bad thing. On the other hand, there's no problem with the concept per se. A lot of really great movies start from one very simple idea. (Not that [i]Clerks[/i] is a really great movie, but you know what I mean.) Not everything has to be [i]Gone With the Wind[/i], with the entirety of the Civil War and Reconstruction tied into a love quadrangle. Take [i]High Noon[/i]. Gary Cooper is doing what a Man Has to Do, and it fills ninety minutes. [i]12 Angry Men[/i] is, well, twelve guys in a jury room. I don't expect Kevin Smith to hit those heights, because he's merely pretty good at what he does, not outstanding. Either way, though, the jewel thieves are unnecessary and detract from the flow of the movie. And don't get me started on Will Ferrel.

I wouldn't want to live in the Askewniverse. For one thing, the Second Coming is, what, ten or eleven now, and how that will impact the end of the world is not something I want to contemplate. For another, it's honestly pretty bleak in a lot of ways. The gentle happiness at the end of [i]Clerks II[/i] is so effective because it's probably the best ending any of the characters can really have. Jay and Silent Bob are going to get old, and I don't see a lot of future for them. (Assuming reasonable Christ parallels, they've got a little over twenty years, and Kevin Smith turns forty this year.) Surely there are people living ordinary lives even in the Askewniverse, and we don't see them because, well, people living ordinary lives don't generally make for interesting cinema. Jay and Silent Bob made a lot of money from the movie, though one rather suspects it's not going to stay long in theatres, but they blew it foolishly and end up standing around dealing pot again in the next movie. If there is another one--which I don't want there to be, as I've said--they'll be standing around dealing pot in that, too. The Askewniverse is, in many ways, a world of stasis, despite the ticking clock set for it in [i]Dogma[/i].