Franchise Friday: Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)
Reboot to the nootch.
You may be surprised to learn there’s still one movie left in our View Askewniverse franchise revisit. And if that’s so, and you have not seen or even heard of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, consider yourself blessed to hang on to two precious hours of life.
It’s kind of shocking to realize this movie came and went with barely a trace, and comparing its fortunes to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks 2 provides an eye-opening look at Kevin Smith’s career arc in the 2000s and 2010s.
Smith was never a blockbuster filmmaker, but in his prime, he wasn’t exactly box office poison. While Clerks and Mallrats never cracked $5 million at the box office, they found a sizable audience on video. Chasing Amy made $12 million, followed by Dogma at $30 million. These aren’t massive numbers, but they are impressive when viewed against their Miramax budgets. They hinted at a filmmaker on the rise, whose cult audience went a long way toward making back his indie budgets.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back got a pretty large release from Dimension, the genre arm of Miramax, opening on an impressive 2,765 screens in August 2001 and ultimately earning $32 million against its $11 million budget. Clerks 2 opened on 2,150 screens and earned slightly less, bringing in $24 million, but its budget was also half of Strike Back’s. Again, none of these are bank-breaking numbers, but they suggest a filmmaker who could dependably earn a small profit, and there was always the sense that Smith was on the cusp of breaking out.
That…was not the case.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Cop Out were both seen as massive flops — although it should be noted that both those films’ box office takes were in line with Smith’s others, and Cop Out is actually Smith’s highest-grossing movie; its disappointment is less financial and more creative — and they seemingly soured him on the studio process. Starting with his thriller Red State, Smith transitioned into a role more akin to ringleader. For that film, Smith perpetrated a notorious stunt where he put it up “for sale” and then “bought” the rights, self-distributing it during select showings in a variety of cities, and making a tidy profit doing so, while alienating critics and some fans. Tusk, the movie in which Justin Long is turned into a walrus, infamously drew its inspiration from a conversation Smith had on his podcast. It received a traditional release (and a bow at the Toronto International Film Festival), was met with mixed reviews and couldn’t break $2 million at the box office. Yoga Hosers — in which Smith’s daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, plays a Canadian convenience store clerk who fights sentient bratwursts who look like Hitler (played by Kevin Smith) — is generally seen as a low point of his career, coughing up an anemic $38,000 at the box office and being near-universally panned.
You can’t blame him for thinking that maybe it was time to return to the Askewniverse for the first time in 13 years (aside from some web projects and a cartoon movie we won’t talk about). But Jay and Silent Bob’s return would be in a different atmosphere. Rather than a massive opening on thousands of screens, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot first debuted as a Fathom Events engagement in October 2019, followed by a road show release. The film grossed $4 million, less than half of its $10 million budget, although the four-walling strategy of the roadshows allowed it to set records for per-screen averages. Smith had long since abandoned any aspirations of mainstream cinematic success (it should be noted he’s had a healthy side career directing television, writing for comic books, leading a podcast empire, and being a professional personality; he may make movies about slackers, but the dude keeps busy). Jay and Silent Bob Reboot was solely for the fans.
Watching it again (I did endure it once upon initial VOD release), though, I actually don’t think that’s true. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is for Smith, and Smith alone.
Jay and Silent Bob Rehash
I don’t think Smith would take issue with my description of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot as a pretty blatant remake of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In fact, the film comments on it several times. It is, very much, its main joke.
Jay and his hetero lifemate may have aged into their mid-40s, but they have not grown up. They operate an illegal pot dispensary next to the Quick Stop and, in the opening scene, are arrested. Their lawyer (an admittingly fun Justin Long, sort of reprising his Zack and Miri role) suckers them into a deal to sign their names away because, you see, he also works for a movie company that wants to remake the Bluntman and Chronic movie from the early-aughts. Incensed at the trickery, Jay and Bob head out to Hollywood (again) and cross paths with faces from other Smith films (again) to stop the movie about them from being made (again).
There’s a world, I guess, in which revisiting Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and making a movie about regurgitating the same jokes might work, but it would require an energy and focus that Smith and his cast appear to lack. Instead, the visits to old characters like Banky feel creaky; Jason Lee gets a good “Squeakquel” gag and “mall rats” pun, but, overall, he and everyone else are just going through the motions. The vulgarity and sex gags feel forced and even more uncomfortable when delivered by actors pushing 50, and whatever trenchant insight Smith had into relationships, culture, Hollywood and pop culture is long gone. The Star Wars jokes feel obligatory (naming one character Millennium Falcon would have been a groaner in Clerks), the movie references are surface level, and the fourth-wall breaking is just aggressively unfunny at this point (I’m not sure who thought it was a good idea to have Jay flip off the audience at one point; we get it, none of us are happy to be here).
Ostensibly, Smith is running through the same gags and characters to give his audience a revisit of all the things they loved from him twenty years earlier. But repetition isn’t clever or funny, and the film wheezes through every pot joke, meta gag and character reintroduction. It often feels less like Smith is doing this for the fans and more for the opportunity to revisit past glories and hang out with old friends. When he and Affleck hug during the latter’s reintroduction late in the film, it’s less because we’re happy to see Affleck but because Smith really wants to work with his estranged friend again (full disclosure: Affleck’s scene is the one bit that largely works, both as a proper and heartwarming epilogue to Chasing Amy and because Affleck is game for some really bad jokes at his expense – bravo to him for pulling off a “Martha” joke).
And if Smith wants to hang out with his friends and get it all on film, that’s his right, and he has the funds to make it happen. I just wish he could do something more than trot out the same hoary jokes. Do we really need more of Dante screaming about how he’s not supposed to be here today? Do we need Jason Lee explaining movie culture one more time? If Jason Mewes’ fact is starting to show its wear and tear, maybe acting like a 20-year-old buffoon just isn’t funny anymore. And Smith can’t even get Silent Bob right, turning into a hammy, stoner version of Charlie Chaplin, when his charm was that he was deadpan with a few well-timed reactions.
Smith attempts to one-up Strike Back’s meta aspect by roping his actual self into the proceedings (the new Bluntman and Chronic movie is directed by Kevin Smith), but it feels self-conscious. There are a few self-deprecating remarks — jokes about his appearance, penchant for putting his kids in his work, penis size, and Comic Book Men — but nothing really clever or fun is done with it (also, not for nothing, the idea that Smith is a Hollywood phony directing a big-budget comic book movie never feels remotely realistic). The film’s climactic Comic Con chase is limp and obligatory; even the “Iron Bob” moment falls flat, although Chris Hemsworth does show up for a fun cameo (this is probably the best place to also acknowledge Matt Damon’s cameo, dropped into the film to deliver a groan worthy Bourne gag that he actually pulls off).
Smith tries to throw everything at the audience: cameos by the Clerks crew (in black and white!), Jason Biggs and James Van Der Beek, jokes about online creeps. But the result is a mess that feels reheated and desperate, not a silly romp or a celebration of Smith’s characters. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is covered in flop sweat, and never stops to consider the moments that actually hint at a better film.
A better story
There is one thread that suggests a more personal movie. Halfway through, Jay and Bob visit Jay’s old girlfriend, Justice (Shannon Elizabeth), who reveals that her teenage daughter Millie (Harley Quinn Smith) is actually Jay’s daughter. Millie and her friends come with Jay and Bob to Hollywood, but Jay promises not to reveal that he is Millie’s father.
There are a few beats where Mewes and Harley Quinn Smith have a tender bond, and the father-daughter story is sweet and allows Mewes to showcase some decent emotional chops. Millie is frustrated that she never knew her father and Jay knows he’s not dad material, and there are several surprisingly poignant and even touching reflections on parenting baked in. “Kids are like our reboot,” Affleck says at one point, when talking about his daughter (played by Mewes’ real-life child).
As with the climactic argument in Clerks 2, Smith hits on a personal and affecting note that might have been wiser to bump up to the movie’s main story and theme. A more grounded version of Jay and Silent Bob where Jay met his daughter and learned to be a father could have been interesting, funny and even touching. A brief scene at the end hints at the sweet-hearted hangout movie that could have been. But there’s a sense that Smith doesn’t trust himself with more introspective, slightly more serious material any longer, and those heartfelt moments are ultimately buried by the wackiness and shenanigans he thinks we want.
It’s a shame. In Chasing Amy and Dogma, and even briefly near the end of Clerks 2, Smith showed he could be funny, clever and have something personal to say. But he doesn’t seem to realize he can do that without the parade of pot jokes, dick gags and immature humor. I’d always hoped that he would show that mid-90s spark again and give a movie that entertained but also had something on its mind. The longer we go, the less likely I fear it will be for us to ever see that. Smith has hinted that Clerks 3 is inspired by his heart attack a few years ago and will serve as a semi-autobiographical story about the making of Clerks. I’d love for him to surprise me and turn out one truly great movie, but there’s been so much Jay and Silent Bob, with so many diminishing returns, that I’m not really hopeful.
What do we do with Kevin Smith?
And so, we’ve come (for now) to the end of our Franchise Friday series on the View Askewniverse. And I find myself, again, examining my relationship with the work of Kevin Smith, and it’s even more complex.
As I said in one of these first entries, Smith was an important filmmaker in my burgeoning film geek days. His work was instrumental in helping me navigate the indie scene and to see that vulgar, juvenile humor didn’t have to be brainless. Over time, I assumed I’d outgrown Kevin Smith, and that a revisit of his work would only disappoint me. But going through this series has been enjoyable. I still think Clerks and Mallrats are flawed movies that have their moments, but I also still think Chasing Amy and Dogma hold up as original, funny and ambitious movies. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is genuinely funny in many moments. And sure, Clerks 2 begins to run on fumes and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is a disaster…but there’s still something I find myself rooting for in Smith.
The truth is, the guy’s likable. If you’ve ever attended one of his Q&A’s, it’s one of the best storytelling experiences you’ll have. He’s, by all accounts, a friendly and funny guy. And if I’ve begun to outgrow his characters (and perhaps he has, too), I can’t begrudge him for wanting to forgo the studio route and just hang with his friends and tell the stories he’s interested in. I wish many of them were better, but I guess I’d rather have Smith out there trying his hand at weird horror movies and opportunities to get the gang back together than have him sucked into the IP machine.
And I guess, end of the day, Smith has been nothing if not true to his bona fides as an independent filmmaker. Clerks was a seminal film in the indie movement. And while Smith had a few dabbles in studio filmmaking, he’s stuck to his indie roots pretty strongly. He often self-promotes and self-distributes. He makes whatever weird flight of fancy comes through his head. This year, he’s distributing a horror anthology (Killroy Was Here) as an NFT and he self-financed Clerks 3. Will these be good movies? I have no idea; there’s a good chance they’ll be very bad. But he’s doing what he wants, and I respect that. So, I’ll continue to root for Silent Bob. Snootchie bootchies, everyone.
Other entries in this Franchise Friday series:
Coming next week:
After seven weeks of dialogue-heavy comedies, we’ll be doing a brie focus on a two-film action series that should have added a third by now. Prepare to get bruised, because next Friday, we’ll look at Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption, and the following week, we’re going to gear up for the bone-crunching The Raid 2.