NDSU Spectrum: Movie review

Kevin Smith strikes back with ‘Jay and Silent Bob’

By JOHN HANSEN

Aug. 31, 2001

Kevin Smith claims to make stupid movies for smart people, but “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” might be better described as a smart stupid movie for pop culture junkies. There are an absurd number of big-name cameos in Smith’s fifth movie set in the “askewniverse,” including actors reprising their roles from “Clerks” (1994), “Mallrats” (1995), “Chasing Amy” (1997) and “Dogma” (1999).

Rediscovering the funny

At the center of this long but engaging comedy are loveable stoners Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith), who hitchhike from New Jersey to Hollywood to shut down a movie based on the “Bluntman and Chronic” comic, written by Jason Lee’s character from “Chasing Amy” and inspired by J&SB.

If this is, as Smith claims, the last movie set in the “askewniverse,” it’s a heck of a way to go out. After his hilariously dead-on portrayals of convenience store clerks and comic-loving mall geeks gained him a cult following, Smith moved on to the “serious” topics of sexuality and religion and gained critical praise even as he lost his edginess. This time, he’s found the funny again.

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Like the overwrought “Dogma,” “J&SB” is a road trip movie with wacky pit stops, but this time a viewer actually cares about the characters (yes, I’m saying that two stoners are more interesting than two angels who go around killing people).

The film opens with a flashback to the ‘70s, explaining how Jay acquired his foul mouth from his mother, then flashes forward to present day where we learn Dante and Randall are still working the same jobs they had seven years ago.

It kind of made me wish I was watching “Clerks 2” for a moment, but the title characters won me over soon after. These guys can carry a movie almost as well as the clerks or the mallrats.

Quotable dialog and inside jokes

A lot of that has to do with the writing of Smith, whose script is packed with quotable dialogue, none of which can be printed in a newspaper. Smith beats the Wayans Bros. at their “Scary Movie” game, unleashing a hodgepodge of pseudo-inside jokes (as if anyone hasn’t seen “Return of the Jedi”).

But even as he winks at the audience (literally — Ben Affleck wonders why anyone would want to watch a movie about Jay and Silent Bob, who proceed to pause and wink at the audience), it’s obvious that he took the time to actually write a script.

It wouldn’t be sporting to reveal all the cameos, but if you are fan of “Scooby Doo,” “Dawson’s Creek,” “American Pie” or the ‘80s band The Time, you’ll enjoy a few chuckles. The two-minute “Planet of the Apes” parody is hilarious, and the James Van Der Beek/Jason Biggs sequence is an instant classic.

Smith claims he is putting Jay, Silent Bob and all his other slacker hero characters behind him with this movie, instead pursuing more “serious” material. If that’s true, “Jay and Silent Bob” marks the end of a glorious era.

Grade: B+