"It's not by any means a good movie...


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Posted by Jerky McJerk-Jerk at cc230117-a.trrsdl1.pa.home.com on August 24, 2001 at 12:51:10:

But "Jay and Silent Bob" is one heck of a good laugh."

It should be noted for the record that this guy is a card carrying douchebag.

Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: Friday, August 24, 2001

First came Hope and Crosby. Then Cheech and Chong. Now to this distinguished list of mismatched buddies on oddball odysseys add the names of Jay and Silent Bob.

These figures in the cluttered landscapes of the Kevin Smith comedies "Clerks," "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy" and "Dogma" elbow their way to the foreground in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." Both because it elevates minor players to major roles and because it will stoop to any depths to get a laugh. "J & SB" amounts to a Gen X "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern."

Frisky, raunchy and frequently riotous — despite or because of its unapologetic stoner scabrousness, it's hard to tell — this road trip from New Jersey to California visits the pop-cultural landmarks for the generation(s) born after 1970. (Note to a certain 16-year-old: No, no, no; don't even ask.)

From "Star Wars" and "Dawson's Creek" to Scooby-Doo and the Internet, Jay and Silent Bob (played by the knit-capped Jason Mewes and the overcoated Smith) pay their disrespects to the pop phenomena that defined and warped them.

Jay and Silent Bob are stunned to find that their cartoonist pal, Banky (Jason Lee from "Chasing Amy"), is profiting on their deadbeat images. Seems that some Hollywood outfit called Miramax has bought the rights to Banky's comic "Bluntman & Chronic," inspired by the misadventures of J & SB. For the slacker supremos of North Jersey, this is tantamount to giving Jabba the Hutt the Millenium Falcon as his pleasure ship.

So naturally, Jay and Silent Bob hitchhike to Hollywood to sabotage the production. On the way, they become strip-mall Ulysseses.

First they encounter Sirens (in the shapely forms of the Charlies' Angels-esque Eliza Dushku, Ali Larter and Jennifer Schwalbach). Then they battle that Cyclops known as the Internet, where they are being badmouthed for selling out. Finally, in California, they defy Hollywood gods Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, whose "Good Will Hunting 2" set they disrupt.

(They also tweak Hollywood demigods Jason Biggs and James Van Der Beek, the actors cast as Bluntman & Chronic.) And Jay actually finds his Calypso in Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), who is a safecracker, heartbreaker and Jay's True Love.

Like Hope and Crosby in "The Road to Zanzibar," Cheech and Chong in "Up in Smoke," or Myers and Carvey in "Wayne's World," Mewes and Smith are comedians and cultural critics. Mewes' nonstop chatter and Smith's nonstop mugging (he delivers his running critique with rolling of eyes and arching of eyebrow) are a most eloquent (if profane) form of social commentary. (But can someone explain why Smith uses gay sex as the source of so many jokes here? I'm not sure if this constitutes homophobia, homophilia or latency.)

In terms of Smith's career, this is not an advance over his far superior "Clerks" and "Chasing Amy." Those movies had characters rather than comic caricatures. And it must be said that Smith is a little young to be paying homage to his own movies. But unlike the static, preachy "Dogma," this film moves like a jackrabbit in heat.

It's not by any means a good movie. But "Jay and Silent Bob" is one heck of a good laugh.




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