New film provides laughs for both newcomers, Smith fans
By Daily Bruin Staff
Aug. 19, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Holden McNeal (Ben Affleck) explains the
intricacies of the Internet to Jay (Jason Mewes)
and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith).
By Bridget O’Brien
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
To someone who has never seen a Kevin Smith film before,
“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” is humorous and
quirky. To a fan, the flick is the final piece in a five-film View
Askew puzzle.
Jason Mewes and actor/director Smith as Jay and Silent Bob may
not have been the title roles in “Clerks,”
“Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy,” or
“Dogma,” but their latest movie reveals that they are
crucial characters in the series, and the most obvious uniting
component.
The movie ties together seemingly random elements from the
previous four films. The opening scene explains Jay and Silent
Bob’s propensity for hanging out in front of convenience
stores and Jay’s explicit vocabulary. Later on the audience
finds out why the duo walked off into the distance with an
orangutan to Weezer’s “Suzanne” at the end of
“Mallrats.”
This film is not as good as the previous four, but it still
proves entertaining by tying together inside jokes and elements
from the rest of the series.
 Jay (Jason Mewes) has his first onscreen
kiss with Justice (Shannon Elizabeth) in
“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” the final piece in a
five-film View Askew series. One of the movie’s strengths is
its cast. Most of the key actors from Smith’s other films
(Brian O’Halloran, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Renee Humphrey and
Joey Lauren Adams) made at least brief appearances in “Jay
and Silent Bob Strike Back.”
A huge assortment of other stars were added to the cast,
including actors Matt Damon, Jason Biggs and Judd Nelson, alongside
comedians Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, Will Ferrell and George Carlin
and directors Wes Craven and Gus Van Sant. Mark Hamill and Carrie
Fisher also put in cameos, pulling together the “Star
Wars” allusions from Smith’s prior movies.
Though a newcomer to View Askew productions won’t get many
of the jokes in “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,”
sequences that mock “Charlie’s Angels,”
“Good Will Hunting,” “Entrapment” and even
“Scooby Doo” give good laughs to fans and non-fans
alike.
