JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
A promising concept and an ambition to pack it all into this one final outing for Jay and Silent Bob: but the end result is so high on the silly stakes it doesn’t register anywhere else. There are chuckles throughout, and some of the grossest humour is even funny. Much of it isn’t. There’s simply too much of it (gross) and to little avail. The madcap stuff is often overlong and banal, and the self-referential material, while amusing enough, fails to ignite the film. Maybe there should be more of that…Still peddling his undergraduate sensibilities (complete with giant fart jokes that are not so much jokes as just farts) Kevin Smith has to be thanked for two things: 1) Chasing Amy, and 2) his promise that this is the last of the J & SB movies.

Review by Louise Keller:
Filled with foul language, in-jokes and stoopid (duh) slapstick humour, Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back is a disappointing final chapter from Kevin Smith, whose Chasing Amy remains by far his best project. While it is true that I am probably not the film's intended target market, the film relies on fart jokes and language that is intended to shock: I frankly don't think that repetition of four letter words and bare bums is so hilarious. But maybe I'm missing something. There are some cute ideas, and Jay and poor ol' Silent Bob could have chalked up a cult following – in the same way that Mike Myers whipped up interest in his Austin Powers character. But good ol' Austin did have a gimmick, while Jay and Bob's one-joke premise eventually runs very dry. All the characters are one dimensional and bland, making it more comic book-like than Smith perhaps intended. It's rather fun to meet the Chasing Amy crowd again, and the Ben Affleck/Matt Damon jokes work well – until they become heavy handed and overdone. The film is at its best when we venture to Miramax Studios, and I really laughed when our anti-heroes ran head first into a set that looked like a road. That’s funny. In fact, there are some well-executed gags at the Studios that would have been even funnier with a lighter touch. It's a blast to meet Carrie Fisher, Gus Van Sant, Chris Rock, Mark Hamill, Shannen Doherty, James Van Der Beek and Jason Biggs in unexpected cameos, and teens looking for a mindless night out may guffaw and splutter some. But Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back is a self-indulgent trip for Smith; pity, there's a fun movie in there dying to come out.