Skip to main content

Movie Review: Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot One Sheet
On the off chance Kevin Smith or anyone from his organisation happens to read this review, I want to applaud Kevin for personally taking this movie on the road to theatres. I think that's amazing and more directors should release their films that way but...

For the love of God, can you please find a way to release your films so that people in countries you won't be touring in can get to see them sooner... and I don't mean that BS where one streaming service gets the film exclusively for 3-5 months before the DVD/Blu-ray release and wider distribution to other streaming services.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow kicked off mid October of 2019. At the time of writing this it became available on DVD just a week or so ago. I bought a copy as soon as it became available here in Australia. So, about eight months after it released I can finally see it. I can also finally listen to the Smodcast Commentary track Kevin recorded, which has sat on my playlist for at least two months at this point (or since whenever the movie first debuted on streaming I think).

Streaming services may have replaced the video store but just like video stores they lie by saying you'll be able to access all your favorite movies whenever you want. Well at least for as long as we exist and we still have a licensing deal with the company that makes your favorite movies... and don't forget we randomly remove titles for 'reasons'. I'm not subscribing to a service for one movie.

Personally I like owning physical copies of my favorite movies regardless of the format, just so long as I can store it somewhere where no one can say it's no longer available to me anymore. At the same time I'm not paying DVD/Blu-ray prices for digital copies of movies that don't have any postage or packaging costs (and I don't buy that server space is that expensive when Youtube gives away so much of it for free to shit, four hour live streams)...

Anyway, I guess that's a bit of side track rant. All I'm saying is having to wait so long to see a movie is a real buzz kill because any podcast that was likely to share my enthusiasm for the movie, or at least provide some independent commentary, moved on ages ago (looking at you Weekly Planet - who said you might feature Kevin Smith movies in the lead up to this movie but never did because of the wait just to be able to even see it in Australia). 

So, back to the review. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is basically the same story as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) travel across the country to try and prevent Hollywood from making a reboot of their movie, Bluntman and Chronic. Basically a reboot about rebooting old  movies.

Is it any good? It's a Kevin Smith movie. How good it is, is relative to how much of fan you are of Kevin Smith. Although I'm sure Kevin does his best to make his films as good as can be what he's really trying to do is make sure you have a good time. If this is your first Kevin Smith movie it may be a little all over the place but you should still have fun.

That's really what I think Jay and Silent Bob Reboot sets out to be... a good time with Kevin and his friends. If you're a Kevin Smith fan, you'll feel included with the nods and winks directly to camera on some of the inside jokes.

Kevin has admitted to editing this movie down to a tight 105 minutes which makes me question if the road trip section of the movie was longer at one point? Although I haven't seen it in a while I'd swear Jay and Silent Bob Strikes back had much more road trip featured as part of the journey.

In Jay and Silent Bob Reboot the road trip section doesn't feel like they did much more than travel across town, and seems over so fast you wonder why Kevin just didn't have them hop on a plane, as the characters intended to do on the outset?

As such the storyline of Jay having a daughter, Milly (Harley Quinn Smith), travelling with him but he can't tell her, seems a little bit rushed, and doesn't quite earn any emotional weight once things unfold. There's very few moments, if any I recall, where Milly starts to suspect Jay may be someone of more significance to her.

Beyond that I did indeed have a good time watching the movie. My favorite scene was in Brodie's (Jason Lee) Comic shop where Brodie expositions the hell out of some important plot points. You know it's all exposition but Jason Lee's delivery sells it so well.

I also got a real kick out of Ben Affleck's scene, returning as Holden McNeil. It doesn't serve a whole lot of purpose in this film but, as I think Kevin Smith has said, it kind of serves as a mini sequel to his earlier film, Chasing Amy. Not that I needed that, it was just great to see Ben having some fun and being reunited with Kevin (crossing my fingers those two will sit down for a long podcast about Ben's career, and especially his turn as Batman - though I'd be happy with just swapping memories from Kevin's early films too).

Another highlight was definitely Chris Hemsworth's cameo. That guy really needs to do more dialogue driven comedy... maybe Kevin can write a buddy movie for him and Jason Lee?

Special mention for Melissa Benoist as Chronic. Even in a ridiculous looking Superhero suit she totally sells how bad ass she can be. Whether you like her Supergirl show or not, it's impressive how she can go from sweet, girl next door, to laser vision, I'll f**k you up if you mess with me, in seconds and be totally convincing.

The biggest laugh for me came right at the very end post credit scene. Such a simple idea but the ramifications of it make it one of the best Easter egg jokes ever in a Kevin Smith movie.

Overall, if you're a Kevin Smith fan, this movie will certainly entertain and is kind of a book end to Kevin's earlier movies. It's not a perfect movie by any stretch but the highlights are memorable and the cameos add to the fun.

To top it off, you get a fun moment between the late Stan Lee and Kevin Smith during the credits. Stan was set to make a cameo in this film, which would have been very fitting given one of his very first cameos was in a Kevin Smith film (Mall Rats). Unfortunately it was not to be but this moment is maybe even better than the cameo would have been.
TET Life Topics:

Comments

Post a Comment

* Thanks to constant spam comments by a Casino Marketing Moron who won't get the message that spam comments WILL be deleted ALL comments will be moderated and only cool, on topic comments will be approved.

Comments not directly related to the post will be deleted. This includes spammy generic comments with links to websites not related to the post.

Buy Gifts and Apparel featuring art by TET.

Popular posts from this blog

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Batman Cosplay Breaks the World Record for Most Functional Gadgets

Julian Checkley in his record breaking Bat Suit. If anyone should hold the world record for most functional gadgets in a cosplay suit it's Batman. Not the actual Batman, whose suit is actually his work clothes and not cosplay, the honour goes to Batman Cosplayer, Julian Checkley.
1 comment
Continue Reading »

ANZAC Day and the South Australian Governor General's New Fence

ANZAC Centenary Memorial Walk, Adelaide SA. Australian's love to honour their war heroes and so they should. South Australia is no exception, with memorials to fallen soldiers in almost every town and city. Adelaide even has road bridges named after famous battles from the Vietnam war. ANZAC Day (April 25th) is the one day where we put all those war memorials to use in memory of all who served from World War I onward with parades and dawn services attended by thousands. Arguably, ANZAC day is more popular than it ever has been in Australia, with pilgrimages back to Gallipoli in Turkey now a thing that many Australians hope to do at least once. To see and attend services where it all began.
2 comments
Continue Reading »

Skateboard Trick Tips: Two Ways to Ollie North (Ollie One foot)

You have to be quick to see my Ollie Norths! Ollie One Foots, otherwise known as the Ollie North, is one of those skateboard tricks you learn and then tend not to do very much as more interesting trick challenges grab your attention. However it does look really cool if you learn how to kick your front foot well past the nose of your skateboard. Still shot from Braille Skateboarding's Ollie North tutorial. I was inspired to make my video below, showing two different techniques to achieve a successful Ollie One Foot, when I not only saw that Braille Skateboarding's Tutorial used a different method to the one I had learned but also, when I looked at various other video tutorials, I discovered yet another technique, with no one using the method I had originally learned. Braille's method is to simply Ollie and drag your front foot past the front of your board. The second method I came across in several video tutorials is to Ollie, drag your front foot and tap your
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

A.I. Can Now Create Art Based Upon Text Prompts - DALL-E 2 and CrAIyon (Formerly DALL-E Mini)

"a painting of a fox sitting in a field at sunrise in the style of Claude Monet” Image by DALL-E 2, OpenAI.com One thing people have often said is that machines will never replace creative artists because they lack the imagination and emotion required to create anything meaningful. A.I. technology is now good enough to work as writing assistants, including sites like Jasper and Rytr , where you simply tell the A.I. what you want to write about and it'll produce a complete article on that subject. The article may not be perfect but it can sure save you a lot of time. DALL-E 2: Realistic images and art from a description in natural language. With the release of DALL-E 2 there is now an A.I. that can produce realistic (or artistically styled) images based entirely on text prompts in seconds. We're not just talking about collaging a few images together here either. DALL-E 2 can create images where everything looks fairly seamless and purposefully included. Rather than me try
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Artificial Intelligence, Chat Bots, and Sentient Machines - Where is my Robot Companion?

As fascinating and exciting as the world of robotics is companies like Boston Dynamics , Disney Imagineering , and Engineered Arts (which I wrote about their very human-like robot, Ameca , in my previous post ), have demonstrated it's very possible to create human like robots. That is, something along the lines of C3-PO from Star Wars , or Sonny from iRobot . Arguably, what isn't possible at this time, is creating a sentient robot i.e. something that can think for itself, develop its own ideas, and even have emotions.  I say 'arguably' because being 'sentient' is a somewhat relative term. If we're talking the equivalent of human sentience then current robots and artificial intelligences (A.I.) are a long way off. However, we can create robots that are capable of learning on their own.  You could, conceivably create a robot that starts out following its programming then, over time, learns behaviors and problem solving in ways never conceived by its creator
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

How to Start From Nothing - a Video by Sorelle Amore Finance About Starting Any Kind of Business

Sorelle Amore. It's the million dollar question for many people wanting to start a business who feel they don't have the knowledge, money, skills, time, or all four, "How do I start from nothing?" If that's something you want to know too then the video below by  Sorelle Amore , an Australian photographer and social media entrepreneur success story, who is most known for literally writing the book on how to take an #AdvancedSelfie, has an answer well worth considering. Just in case you feel advice from a professional selfie photographer couldn't possibly be meaningful Sorelle's journey to financial freedom in just two years is well worth looking into. One takeaway for me is that at age 28 she was broke, but turned things around and was a millionaire by age 30. While that's an exceptional result of quite a lot of hard work, writing books, building courses, and more, what it says to me is, it's possible to be financially secure in less than two years
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »