Wright or Wrong: Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

Following the former of the titular duo grappling with the discovery that he is the father to a previously unknown teenage daughter, there's a scene in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" that perhaps  encapsulates Kevin Smith as a filmmaker more perfectly than anything else the man has ever created, for better or worse.

Ben Affleck reprises his role as comic book artist Holden McNeil from "Chasing Amy," having platonically reconciled with his past lesbian love interest to become the sperm donor for a child that she and her wife co-parent with him named Amy. In a warm  and quiet moment he shares with the titular stoner duo, he talks to Jay about parenthood in a beautifully round about way mirroring Smith's "Chasing Amy" monologue as Silent Bob, espousing the beauty of getting to help children achieve the second chances you never thought you would have in life and how life doesn't conform to narrative conventions as we all must learn to grapple with coming to the climax of a 3 act structure only to begin a prolonged second act all over again, with all of the chaos and grace of life that it entails.

Courtesy images

It's profound, moving, sincere, demonstrative of a storyteller that has clearly matured in ways unexpected and Ben Affleck uses every second he's granted to deliver it to stunning effect. This is then followed up 40 seconds later with his character playing with his daughter by rambling off a series of non-sequitur puns highlighting Affleck's career choices of the last decade with all of the comedic timing of amateur stand up. There's no in between; you will either find this bit grating or endearing in its whiplash and sloppiness.

Such is the work of Smith in general, epitomized by "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot," as he and best friend Jason Mewes reprise their roles as Jay and Silent Bob on a journey to stop a reboot of the superhero comic book movie based on them after being sued in court to drop their names by Saban films copyright lawyers trying to protect the brand name of the IP they're trying to reboot, in a Saban films distributed production that's a sequel to the stoner comedy about these 2 stoners trying to stop a film adaptation based on them. This insanity encompasses the first 15 minutes of the film and only doubles itself down from there.

As a genuine fan of Kevin Smith's cinematic endeavors, I can't deny that I almost find it difficult to not grade the man's work on some kind of curve as, excluding his recent round of worthless Canadian based pseudo-comedies, most of his work comes admirably from the heart even if he's batting more misses than hits at this point. I stress this because if taken at face value outside of the context of the director's development, "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" is an obvious mishmash of nonsense and dying stoner comedy cliches that thinks being meta is the same thing as being clever, fetishizes nerd and pop culture ephemera into oblivion, and another failed attempt to convince the world that Harley Quinn Smith is a good actress.

Excluding the occasional gags of storytelling structure that actually work to decent effect however, viewing the film as the end of an era for Smith's days as a filmmaker in favor of a media mogul utilizing his connections in various mediums to coordinate surreal feature length performance art, however it becomes a fascinating study of the winding road an artist has taken to explore life before becoming comfortable in his niche.

The movie is grounded by Jay's realizations and desires to become a good father in spite of having no model to aspire to in what that means and when it really leans into this, it shines no matter how at odds its own sense of humor is with the dramatic tonal shifts.

This is due not only to a glimpse of Smith achieving his potential as a storyteller in the film's writing and direction but on an unexpected growth of Jason Mewes, who actually gets to flex his acting chops. The last 2 minutes of this movie are legitimately heartfelt and the man may be giving one of the best performances of his career in an otherwise mediocre to average at best stoner comedy.

As I stated before, it's hard not grade this film on some kind of curve. On its own, the sloppy metatextual narrative and reaching for gags that miss more than they hit make for a movie that isn't going to convert anybody to the cult of Smith if they're not already indoctrinated, which is why the movie feels blatantly made for them and has me wondering why Smith won't just spring for a streaming deal to send these things to an online network rather than put up the veneer of it being worth any sort of theatrical release.

For all of its follies however, "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" may not be a good movie but its ultimately profound, if only incidentally, at its best and mostly harmless at its worst.

3 out of 5