So, Jay finally scored a chick.
It took Jason Mewes’ stoner character long enough to get some action. How long? Try four movies. It looks like, however, that the fifth movie’s a charm. In fact, everything about Kevin Smith’s fifth movie, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” is charming — although often in an immature, psychotic way.
Smith may be calling it quits for his two obscene, pop culture bashing New Jersey creations to pursue other film avenues, but he had a whole lot of fun first. Although this time, Smith made the duo the focal point rather than merely a funny side-plot. In fact, many of Smith alumni main characters were the side-plots or subject to brief cameos this time around.
Smith, writer, director and actor of the four comedies “Clerks,” “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma,” decided to take an all-or-nothing approach to his last Jersey flick. Already known for twisted plots and a fierce need to satirize anything having to do with popular culture, Smith mocked everything from Scooby Doo to Hollywood to the Internet in “Jay and Silent Bob.”
Throughout the movie we’re reintroduced to the familiar faces of Smith’s previous films. The two “Clerks” characters Dante Hicks and Randal Graves, played by Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson, finally get a restraining order against Jay and Silent Bob — who have apparently been hanging out in front of the Quick Stop since they were wee tots.
Deprived of their hangout and place of business, they go to the mall where we next meet the equally loudmouthed co-star of “Mallrats” Brodie Bruce, played by Jason Lee. Upon seeing Brodie, they are informed that Miramax brought the rights to the comic “Bluntman and Chronic” and were about to start filming a movie.
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Jay and Bob didn’t have a clue about any of that, which posed a problem since the comic’s creators, Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards, based their characters and their likenesses on Jay and Silent Bob.
Enraged — as much as two stoners can be enraged — they searched for Holden McNeil, the main character of Smith’s third and critically acclaimed film, “Chasing Amy.”
Holden, played by Ben Affleck, informs the two stoners that he sold all the rights of the comic to Banky. He also shows Jay and Silent Bob the Internet, which channels all their anger toward the people who trash talk online through bulletin boards.
Determined to stop the movie from being made and having only three days to do it, Jay and Bob hitchhike to Hollywood, where they meet some of the weirdest Kevin Smith characters.
Between Jersey and Hollywood, we see Carrie Fisher as a nun, the Scooby Doo gang as a bunch of bitter, angry, cursing sociopaths and a band of psychotic jewel thieves whose names all rhyme.
While hitching a ride with the jewel thieves Jay falls for the sweet Justice, played by Shannon Elizabeth, and she actually develops a thing for him as well. They’re also set up by the rest of the thieves, played by Eliza Dushku, who merely looks as if she’s reprising her role of the crazy slayer Faith on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Ali Larter and newcomer Jennifer Smith.
As a Star Wars fanatic, Smith gets in more than just Star Wars references through the appearances of Fisher as the nun and Mark Hamill playing the “Bluntman” villain Cock-Knocker, where Smith and Jay have a psuedo-lightsaber duel with him.
The movie has as much of a happy ending as you’ll ever get from the ever-twisted Smith, but he hardly ever skips a beat in his sardonic, witty commentary on Hollywood and other pop culture icons. Although the movie does have mostly sex and fart jokes, he gives them as much class as he can — which is saying a lot. The only thing within the movie that was pointless was Shannon Doherty’s cameo in the making of yet another “Scream” movie. We already know there are too many “Scream” movies.
Overall the movie was a fantastically funny head trip not to be missed by Smith fans or anybody else who enjoys a great comedy. Although Jay and Silent Bob will be missed, Smith’s new projects are something to look forward to if they’re anywhere near as good as his last five movies.
