Posted by ddangelo at host-216-76-222-20.dab.bellsouth.net on September 01, 2001 at 23:54:21:
I had mixed reactions to JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK. I thought it was a lot of fun for what it was, but I can't help thinking that it is not going to appeal to the general public. Personally, I enjoyed the in-jokes and the guest appearances by characters from previous View Askew films. However, if you are not a comic book/sci-fi fan and have not seen all of Kevin Smith's previous movies, I don't think this movie holds up very well. Generally, I prefer Kevin's more serious films like CHASING AMY and DOGMA, which--although they had their share of crude humor--also had something important to say. JAY & SILENT BOB reminded me of MALLRATS, in that it was basically just a funny film without any serious message behind it.
Anyway, my one gripe with the film was the sequence with the "Suzanne" orangutan character, which was taken from the JAY & SILENT BOB comic book mini-series. I don't know if anyone else has commented on this already, as I haven't stopped to read every review of the film that's been posted, but I am curious as to what Kevin's motivation was in re-using this sequence. Not only did it lessen my enjoyment of the film, because I had already seen the same set-up in the comics and basically knew what was going to happen, but it pretty much invalidates that "Chasing Dogma" mini-series, which was supposed to show what happened to Jay & Bob in-between CHASING AMY and DOGMA, unless we are to believe that the same sequence of events could re-occur twice in Jay & Bob’s fictional lives.
Perhaps Kevin felt that most of the people seeing the movie would not have read the comics, and therefore would not notice or care about a little continuity "glitch" like this. And there's really nothing wrong with that, as most comic book-related films do not tie-in to the comics continuity. I also don't mean to sound like some anal-retentive continuity freak here. It's just that I was surprised that a comics aficionado like Kevin, who has taken such care to build-up a consistent continuity between his films and comics, would choose to toss it all away like that. Interestingly, I read in WIZARD that Kevin also wanted to re-use another sequence from the comics in this film, in which Jay & Bob wind up in a porno film version of "Doogie Howser, M.D.".
I would be curious to hear Kevin's feelings about this subject, as I'm sure there ARE a few continuity freaks out there who are wondering if the JAY & SILENT BOB comic book mini-series can still be fit into View Askew continuity. I suppose if you toss out that one issue (I believe it was #3), the rest of the series still fits.