Jay and Silent Bob Reboot review
There’s some odd stuff going on with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. It fits the modern Hollywood profile of being a franchise film and a late sequel, but the distribution change is Fathom Events and then a roadshow.
Then again, the box office works a lot differently now. In the long, long ago in the time before time, a $20 million profit was a success. Nowadays, being $350 million in the black is still a loss if the bean counters decide the movie should have profited $600 million.
The other odd thing is how star-studded it is for a limited-release, low-budget movie. I guess Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Hemsworth, Rosario Dawson, Shannon Elizabeth, Val Kilmer, Method Man, Redman, Chong, Stan Lee (and Melissa Benoist, Joe Manganiello, Jason Lee, James Van Der Beck, Craig Robinson, Molly Shannon… and a zillion prominent voice actors who you probably wouldn’t recognize in the flesh) REALLY like Kevin Smith. So, damn. Guy must be very friendly.
Having firmly established that a whole bunch of people REALLY wanted to make this movie despite the Jay and Silent Bob series having been cold for 13 years, and having also established that major studios and distributors wanted nothing to do with the whole experience, where does that leave the seventh movie of the Jersey Trilogy as a movie?
I’m not sure if “heart” is the right word to use here, but Jay and Silent Bob Reboot absolutely has the energy of the previous movies in the series despite the noticeable aging of the protagonists. The lines are still snappily written and delivered, the obscenity is the same old level, yet somehow still comically over-the-top despite the goalposts moving so far since the ‘90s. There’s still a bunch of nerdy references shoved in wherever they could fit. The scenes have a bunch of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it gags. All the while, the movie kind-of delivers on the premise of the title by hanging lampshades on all the tropes of reboot movies.
All of it was enough for me to forget that all of these movies eventually land on a sometimes shockingly well-delivered message. And we have that here, too, as the culmination of (of all people) Jay’s character arc through the movie. Though, to be fair, Affleck does more of the heavy lifting than Jason Mewes does at that point, but Mewes does alright selling the arc while it’s in progress.
As far as a watch recommendation goes, it comes down to this: Do Jay and Silent Bob movies still do it for you after all these years? This movie delivers more of the same. It’ll be like putting on a comfortable sweater that probably still smells like everything you’ve smoked in it. For others, it may be a fun diversion as a nostalgia trip. But perhaps the modern distributors and studios were right about the limited range of appeal. I have a hard time seeing Reboot as being a person’s first Jay and Silent Bob experience considering how much series mythology is involved in the plot.
While you already missed the Fathom Events… event, the roadshow won’t start until Oct. 30 and winds its way back and forth across the U.S. and Canada until the beginning of February (including the unheard of… a stop in Maine!). The sold out shows and stops that have already gone by are helpfully moved to the bottom of the list.
About The Author
Drew
Features Editor | Drew started behind the 8(bit)-ball in the video game world. He first became interested in anime by chance exposure on the Sci-Fi channel. Drew's the creative force behind blog-wide features, works the movie and food beats, and pioneered Damage Control’s entry into video, podcasts and streaming.
