- Title: Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
- IMDb: link
Even for a guy who hasn’t had an original idea in a decade, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is incredibly lazy. Writer/director/star Kevin Smith reunites familiar faces with a sequel of sorts to one of his lazier projects, but still infinitely more entertaining, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Not much has changed for the drug-dealing pair of Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) who take a road trip to Hollywood to prevent another movie about the comic characters they inspired from being made.
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is a tired film that makes the likes of Cannonball Run II and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 look inspired by comparison. Along the way the pair will run into several familiar faces reprising their roles from various Smith films. Some of these play a marginal role in the plot such as Shannon Elizabeth who introduces Jay to his illigetimate daughter Milly (Smith’s real-life daughter Harley Quinn Smith), many are completely superfluous, and some don’t make any sense whatsoever (such as Matt Damon‘s bizarre cameo). There are also new cameos from the likes of Fred Armisen, Melissa Benoist, Chris Jericho, Chris Hemsworth, and others.
Not even a Kevin Smith fan, and sometimes apologist, like me can recommend this one. The film does offers some laughs here and there along with a slew of references to other films, which like the cameos don’t always make sense in relation to the film’s plot. Some of the scenes are also only marginally professional. More than once the movie made me thing of Ed Wood taking the first take even if the Styrofoam tombstones were moving in frame. Bereft of any original content, the script relies completely on nostalgia from Smith’s previous projects. The number of stars willing to enable Smith giving up on making anything more substantial also disappoints, especially when some of the cameos do more harm to the memory of Smith’s earlier work than anything else. The film is currently available on several streaming platforms as well as DVD and Blu-ray.
Lazy is the right word. This was disappointing.