Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Rubbish (more please)

Purile nonsense. A farce. An insult to Clerks. All of the above yet imminently watchable if you're the kind of person who knows where I got my user name from.

It's not so young, it's very dumb and J&SBSB is full of those kinds of jokes.

Sight gags and slapstick fill in for the intellect of Dogma or Chasing Amy. And the whoel does feel a little shoddy and pointless. Clerks 2

Snootchie nootchies!

A lot of hardcore Kevin Smith fans were a bit disappointed with this outing, complaining that it was too slapstick, too much like Mallrats (which I also happen to like), and that it wasn't Clerks. Well to them I say 'So what?'

This film is the most 'in' of the New Jersey cycle -- unless you've seen all Kevin Smith's previous works a lot of the jokes or references will pass you by, and you're certainly going to get confused with Jason Lee playing two different characters with no explanation -- but I think that's where a lot of its appeal comes from. Also, the dick and fart jokes are funny...

In the end, if you liked Kevin Smith because he was all indie, cried when he made Mallrats and wet yourself with glee when he made Chasing Amy, well, you're going to hate it. If, on the other hand, you like him because his films are clever, knowing, and have a lot of schoolboy humour in them you're going to love it. The cameos are brilliant, in particular Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (sending themselves up in 'Goodwill Hunting 2: Hunting Season') and Jason Biggs admitting to himself that he'll forever be 'the guy who f*cked a pie' ('In prison, you'll be the pie!').

Plotwise, there's not much to it -- Jay and Silent Bob make their way to Hollywood to stop the making of a movie based on the fictional characters that they sort of vaguely resemble because people are bad mouthing them on the internet, on the way they get caught up in a diamond heist/orang-utan kidnapping, and that's about it. It's no Citizen Kane, but like Shakaluka King says, 'This movie's gonna make House Party look like House Party 2!'

Anyway, enough rambling -- if you liked Mallrats you'll love this; if you didn't, you won't; and if you've not seen all of Kevin Smith's earlier movies enough to know them inside out, you won't know what's going on...

(Useless trivia: In the opening few minutes of 'The Incredibles', when we first meet Buddy (aka 'Incrediboy', voiced by Jason Lee), Mr Incredible tries to remember his name, running through a variety of options, one of which is 'Brodie', the character Jason played in Chasing Amy and J&SBSB. I know, I need to get out more.)