Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is a 2019 American buddy comedy film written, directed, edited by, and starring Kevin Smith. Referring to his 2001 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Smith has described the film as "literally the same fuсking movie all over again".[5] It is the eighth film in the View Askewniverse. The film also stars Jason Mewes, and features cameos from Brian O'Halloran, Jason Lee, Justin Long, Shannon Elizabeth, Rosario Dawson, Val Kilmer, Melissa Benoist, Craig Robinson, Tommy Chong, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck.

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKevin Smith
Produced by
Written byKevin Smith
Starring
Music byJames L. Venable
CinematographyYaron Levy
Edited byKevin Smith
Production
company
Distributed by
Release date
  • October 15, 2019 (2019-10-15) (United States)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$10 million[2][3]
Box office$4.7 million[4]

It was theatrically released with sessions around North America on October 15 and 17, 2019, and had the second highest per-screen average of 2019 (behind Parasite), thanks to its ongoing travelling roadshow.[6][4] Jay and Silent Bob Reboot is the first movie to have per-screen averages over $60,000 four different times in its domestic run.[7]

Plot

Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) lose a court case to Saban Films, who are making a new Bluntman and Chronic film, Bluntman V Chronic. The two also learn they have lost their naming rights, and can no longer self-identify as "Jay and Silent Bob".

Jay and Bob visit Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee), who tells them about the Bluntman and Chronic reboot, which is being directed by Kevin Smith. The film is largely completed, but a major scene is to be shot at the annual fan convention "Chronic-Con" in Hollywood. Jay and Bob have three days to get to Los Angeles to stop the film from being completed and win back their identities. The two depart for California.

They arrive in Chicago, where Jay learns his former girlfriend Justice (Shannon Elizabeth) works as a local weatherperson. Jay and Bob visit Justice, who tells Jay he left her heartbroken by never visiting her in jail. She has since married Reggie (Rosario Dawson) and given birth to their love child, Millennium "Milly" Faulken (Harley Quinn Smith). She introduces Jay to their daughter and her best friend Sopapilla (Treshelle Edmond), but urges him to never reveal his identity to her.

Justice leaves for vacation, and Milly forces Jay to take her and Sopapilla to Hollywood with him and Bob. Milly drugs Jay and Bob with a strong edible, and they wake up on a highway in New Orleans, where they meet Milly's two other friends, Jihad (Aparna Brielle) and Shan Yu (Alice Wen). They tell Jay that they want to visit Chronic-Con because Shan Yu is a huge fan of the first Bluntman and Chronic film and it is her dream to attend Chronic-Con. They steal a van and drive to California. Milly admits to Jay that her bad behavior is attributed to her never knowing her father.

Jay and Bob are abandoned by the group and set off in search of the van. They find it in a vacant area, where the Ku Klux Klan have kidnapped the girls and are having a rally. Bob steals a klan hood and passes himself off as the new Grand Dragon to distract them while Jay rescues the girls. They throw a portable toilet at the Klansmen and flee.

The group makes it to Chronic-Con and sneak in. Jay and Bob plan to ruin the shoot, while the girls want to be extras in the film to fulfill Shan Yu's dream. They agree to part ways, with Jay hugging Milly and letting her know he is proud of her.

After attempting to sneak past a familiar security guard (Diedrich Bader), Jay and Bob are pursued throughout the con. They hide in an empty panel room where they are met by Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck), who has just finished recording a podcast with Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams). Holden has donated his sperm to Alyssa and her wife (Virginia Smith) so they may have a child, whom he helps co-parent. Holden tells Jay that fatherhood gave him a new purpose. This inspires Jay to abort their mission and be a father to Milly. Holden gives them VIP badges, which grants him and the girls access to the panel with Kevin Smith.

Noticing that Bob bears a resemblance to Smith, Milly sneaks backstage and knocks out Smith, giving Smith's clothes to Bob as a disguise. They bring Milly and Shan Yu on stage to film the scene, but Shan Yu sees through their ruse and knocks Bob unconscious, bringing out the real Kevin Smith. Bob is thrown out of the hall and Shan Yu reveals herself to be a Russian spy, bent on destroying American pop culture conventions. Jay reveals to Milly that he is her father. Bob regains consciousness outside and steals a large metal "Iron Bob" suit that was to be used in the filming of the scene. Controlling the suit, Bob incites a riot at the panel and disarms Shan Yu and her henchmen.

After making their way back home, Jay shows Milly the Quick Stop and tells her the stories of his and Bob's adventures, including meeting Justice. Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) arrives to open Quick Stop and bemoans the fact that the steel shutters are once again jammed closed.

In a post-credits scene, Jay tells Milly that for the past twenty-five years, he and Bob have been pranking Dante by jamming gum in the locks.

Cast

A number of Hollywood stars make cameos as themselves, including Jason Biggs and James Van Der Beek, similar to their appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Method Man and Redman in Jay and Silent Bob's hallucination, Chris Hemsworth via a holographic projection at Chronic-Con, Robert Kirkman during the credits, Keith Coogan, and Stan Lee, who makes a posthumous appearance in a mid-credits scene through the use of archive footage of himself and Smith taken from San Diego Comic-Con.

In addition to playing the roles of Dante and Grant Hicks, Brian O'Halloran also appears as himself alongside Marilyn Ghigliotti, Ernie O'Donnell, Scott Schiaffo, and John Willyung for a Clerks 25th Anniversary panel at Chronic-Con. Walt Flanagan, Bryan Johnson, Ming Chen, and Mike Zapcic appear as themselves during a Comic Book Men reunion panel. Actors Chris Wood, Jesse Rath, Ben Gleib, Impractical Jokers’ Brian Quinn and Fatman Beyond co-host Marc Bernardin appear as convention attendees.

In a mid-credits scene, Jake Richardson and Nick Fehlinger reprise their roles from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as the two young men that used to buy marijuana from Jay and Silent Bob.

Production

Following Clerks II, news has appeared often of other titles to be released in the View Askewniverse; these would include Clerks III and Mallrats 2. In 2017, Kevin Smith had confirmed that those projects were cancelled for several reasons, but revealed he had written a new film starring Jay and Silent Bob titled Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. The script was already finished when it was announced and it was said that Miramax would produce it. It was announced on January 25, 2019, that Saban Films had acquired distribution rights to the film in association with Universal Pictures.[9] It is the first film in the View Askewniverse not to be produced by Scott Mosier, and the first film in the View Askewniverse since Mallrats not to be produced by Harvey and Bob Weinstein.

Filming

Filming was initially set to begin mid-2017,[10] then moved to August 2018,[11] then to November of that same year.[12] After the various delays, filming finally began on February 25, 2019, in New Orleans[13] exactly one year after Smith suffered a massive and near-fatal heart attack.[14]

During the filming of the movie, Smith released a weekly documentary called Road to Reboot, showing what is being filmed that week.[15]

Production wrapped on March 27, 2019, after 21 days of shooting, which was the same number of days it took Smith to film his first movie, Clerks, 26 years earlier.[16]

Casting

Mewes and Smith were attached to star as early as the film's announcement.

Comic book writer Stan Lee was initially cast as himself in the film in July 2017,[17] but due to his death on November 12, 2018, was instead given a tribute within the film at Brodie Bruce's comics shop while additionally appearing in the mid-credits through archival footage. The film was also dedicated to his memory. The film's original third act was to revolve around Lee, with an extended performance from him as a main character; however, given principal photography on the film did not commence until three months after Lee's death, the entire third act of the script was rewritten and was based on an unused draft from Mallrats 2.

Ben Affleck was initially not involved in the film. When Affleck was asked in an interview if he got the call for Reboot, he said that "Your guess is as good as mine."[18] After hearing about that interview, Smith reached out to Affleck and wrote in a scene for Affleck's character Holden McNeil from his 1997 film Chasing Amy. Smith became excited that not only did he get Affleck in the film, but that he also got his "... BOYFRIEND BACK!"[19]

Release

Theatrical

The film was released on October 15, 2019, as part of two night Fathom Events showings. The first showing on October 15 gave away a limited edition poster of the film, and the second on October 17 was a double feature with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.[20]

Roadshow

Following the Fathom showings, Smith embarked on a North American roadshow tour with a presentation of the film, followed by a Q&A session. The roadshow began on October 19 in Asbury Park, New Jersey and continued until February 26, 2020, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The tour expanded internationally near the beginning of 2020.[21]

Home media

The film became available on Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming on January 21, 2020. The United States home media releases were distributed by Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

Reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 39 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.40/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Fan-focused to a fault, Jay & Silent Bob Reboot tries to mock the same audience nostalgia it's mining -- and pulls it off often enough to satisfy the faithful."[22] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[23]

JoBlo.com's Paul Shirey gave the film an 8/10 and stated, "As comedy is so exceptionally subjective and this film so clearly tied to a somewhat niche appeal, I can only grade it as a fully biased fan of Smith, even if some of his flicks never worked for me, while others touched my cinematic nerve. As a fully Kevin Smith/Jay and Silent Bob comedy with a hefty amount of laughs and heart, this View Askew flick rates among his better works and cemented my resolve to happily revisit these wacky Jersey boys in another decade or so with pleasure."[24]

Writing for The A.V. Club, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky called this installment "crude and lazy", giving it a D+ for crass humor and summing up the plot as "a succession of crudely drawn-out puns, painfully winking self-references, and underwhelming, listlessly directed cameos".[25]

References
  1. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot's official UK website
  2. "Kevin Smith on Filming Jay And Silent Bob Reboot". September 27, 2019.
  3. Guerrasio, Jason (October 7, 2019). "Kevin Smith on life after the heart attack, reconciling with Ben Affleck, and how 'Jay and Silent Bob Reboot' became his most emotional movie in years".
  4. "Jay & Silent Reboot (2019)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
  5. Shoemaker, Allison (May 27, 2018). "Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Due Out in 2019". Consequence of Sound.
  6. Guerrasio, Jason (October 25, 2019). "Kevin Smith Jay and Silent Bob Reboot box office success". Business Insider. Insider Inc. Retrieved December 26, 2019.
  7. Bean, Travis. "'Jay And Silent Bob Reboot' Is Shattering Box Office Records—And Nobody Has Noticed". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
  8. Vanity Fair (October 15, 2019). "Kevin Smith Breaks Down Jay and Silent Bob Fan Theories from Reddit". YouTube. Retrieved October 17, 2019.
  9. D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 25, 2019). "Kevin Smith's 'Jay And Silent Bob Reboot' Fires Up With Saban Films – Sundance".
  10. "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Is Kevin Smith's New Film After 'Clerks III' and 'Mallrats 2' Went Nowhere". /Film. February 10, 2017.
  11. "'Jay And Silent Bob Reboot' Set To Start Filming This Summer". HuffPost. May 28, 2018.
  12. "Jay And Silent Bob Reboot Movie Shooting This Year". July 23, 2018. Retrieved August 1, 2018.
  13. Hoover, Vince (November 13, 2018). "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Begins Filming In Early 2019".
  14. Mancuso, Vinnie (February 25, 2019). "Kevin Smith Marks 'Jay and Silent Bob Reboot' Production Start with Behind-the-Scenes Photo". Collider.com.
  15. "Kevin Smith Shares 'Jay and Silent Bob Reboot' Road To Reboot Chapter 8". www.bleedingcool.com. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  16. "KEVIN SMITH HAS WRAPPED ON FILMING THE JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT". March 27, 2019. Retrieved March 27, 2019.
  17. WATCH STAN LEE PERFORM A SCENE FROM JAY & SILENT BOB SEQUEL WITH KEVIN SMITH
  18. Nigel Smith and Maura Hohman (March 25, 2019). "Ben Affleck Is Up for Appearing in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Despite Fallout with Kevin Smith". Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  19. "Kevin Smith on Instagram". July 19, 2019. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  20. "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot". Fathom Events. July 18, 2019. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  21. "The Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Roadshow". Retrieved July 18, 2019.
  22. "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 23, 2019.
  23. "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  24. Shirey, Paul (October 16, 2019). "REVIEW: JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT". Joblo.com. Retrieved October 28, 2019.
  25. Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy (October 15, 2019). "Only Diehards Need Bother with Kevin Smith's Crude and Lazy Jay and Silent Bob Reboot". The A.V. Club. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
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