Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

At the very start of Kevin Smith’s new film, there’s an image that surprised me because of how well it communicates the tenuous nature of friendship. It’s the 70s. A baby sits in a stroller outside the Quickie Stop. Another baby is wheeled up by a woman who leaves her baby next to the first baby while she goes to duck into a head shop. When some guy protests, the woman tells him to mind his own fucking business, tells him that the two babies can watch each other, and that they’ll be fine. She heads inside, and one of the babies starts to say, “Fuck” over and over. As we watch, the years pass, and we dissolve from those babies to the now-familiar titular characters of JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, standing in their spot, Jay still repeating his mantra of “Fuck.” We frequently don’t pick our friends in any conscious way. Circumstance and random fortune pick them for us, and in a few brief moments, Smith fills us in on all the history anyone would need to know about how these two ended up together.

And make no mistake: if there’s anything this film is “about,” it’s friendship and the enduring power of it. It’s both text and subtext here. As you watch Smith’s various friends all making return appearances, you realize just what an extended family he’s built over the course of making his New Jersey films, and it’s hard not to be jealous of the experience. It’s rare enough in this business to be able to tell your stories your way, but to be able to build an ensemble of actors who you know you can call on anytime, for any reason... that’s a beautiful thing.

The plot for J&SBSB is slight at best. The duo learns that the rights to BLUNTMAN & CHRONIC have been sold to Miramax Films for a “big Hollywood movie,” and after reading the negative Internet buzz on a suspiciously familiar message board, they decided to save their good names by heading to Los Angeles to stop the film. Along the way, they end up getting involved with a gang of insanely hot jewel thieves, they steal an orangutan, they learn the “rules of the road” from George Carlin, and they make more filthy jokes than I could believe the MPAA allowed. This isn’t really a film about story, though, and that’s fine. When the film is focused on character comedy, I think it’s very funny. For me, the big surprise of the picture is that Jason Mewes has what it takes to carry a film. I’ve always thought he was entertaining, but Smith has been very judicious about how much he gave Mewes to do in the movies over the years. When you listen to some of the audio commentary tracks with Mewes, it’s easy to understand why. He sounds like he IS Jay in many ways. This time out, though, he’s front and center for the entire running time of the movie, and if he failed, the movie would, too. He reveals a great deal of charm as he plays opposite Shannon Elizabeth, and he’s more than willing to deflate his own image in the name of a laugh. As Silent Bob, Smith pretty much just shoots reaction shots at the camera in response to Jay’s dialogue. He’s hamming it up here on a level he’s never approached before, and it changes the character dynamic a bit. More than anything, this is a follow-up to MALLRATS in tone. The comedy is big and broad and silly, and Smith seems willing to do anything for a joke.

Unfortunately, that’s also part of the problem. There are some elaborate movie parody jokes here that are just plain tired. An E.T. reference might have been funny back in 1983, but with the 20th anniversary coming up next year, it’s just dated and tired. The SCOOBY-DOO bit only underlines how unfunny the “Scooby and Shaggy were stoned” jokes are, and in five minutes, Smith proves just how painful next summer’s live-action SCOOBY film is going to be. Mark Hamill’s cameo really never made me laugh. More than anything, I kept thinking “Wow, he looks really bad these days.” The STAR WARS jokes probably didn’t work for me just because of the sheer volume of STAR WARS “humor” I’m exposed to thank to this gig and the e-mail I’m bombarded with. Chris Rock’s role looks like it was trimmed quite a bit, and what’s left isn’t particularly witty or interesting. And considering how vocal Smith has been in criticizing Tim Burton for the ending of PLANET OF THE APES, supposedly lifted from a J&SB comic from a few years ago, Smith is shameless in lifting his final 30 minutes of film from PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE. For a guy who signed my copy of SUPERMAN LIVES “Fuck Tim Burton,” Smith sure seems happy to borrow from him.

Still, overall, I laughed very hard at much of this film, and I hope it does well enough to launch Kevin into the next phase of his career with a hit under his belt. He uses Will Farrell very well, something I always admire, and also gets great work from any number of other cast members. Eliza Dushku is unreasonably sexy in the film in a boozy BUTTERFIELD 8 way, and I envy Joe Quesada, who plays a pizzaguy Dushku randomly decides to boff. Lucky bastard. Shannon Elizabeth makes Jay credible as a romantic lead, meaning she should probably be nominated for an Oscar next year. Special mention must be made of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who literally defuse any criticism I’ve ever heard of either of their filmographies in one great sequence on the set of GOOD WILL HUNTING 2: HUNTING SEASON. The way they rip each other’s hits and misses is the sort of thing that only good friends can get away with, returning us to the film’s one big theme.

Also, I’d like to say that I am not only shocked by the way GLAAD has behaved towards this film, I’m disgusted. Their petty shakedown should be pointed out at any opportunity, and they should not be allowed to run the scam on any other filmmakers in the future. Essentially, their position seems to be “No gay jokes unless you pay us for them.” It seems like the only sort of gay humor that is acceptable is the prissy, obvious, over-the-top style of something like BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER. Any other humor that dares mention anything gay is in danger of being misinterpreted, and therefore the filmmakers should pay money to GLAAD. Charming. I don’t think Smith has made a satire about the way gay stereotypes are used or done anything subversive with his use of the language here. I just think he’s accurately recorded the way a large percentage of guys that age speak. In the end, it doesn’t matter why Kevin included the jokes he did. We still live in a country where speech, even unpopular speech, is defended by the Constitution. If he wants to make a film called KEVIN SMITH’S GREAT BIG FAG JOKE for his next movie, and Miramax is willing to pay for it, then so be it.

Director of photography Jamie Anderson deserves credit for helping Smith expand his visual vocabulary on this picture, and there are actually places where Smith seems to be having fun visually for the first time in his career. If he and Anderson had a good rapport, I hope they work together again. It would certainly be nice to see him continue making forward progress in this department, as I feel it’s always been the weak link in his films. I’d also like to thank Kevin personally for the Talk Back jokes in the movie. I’ve spoken with a lot of filmmakers about Talk Back over the years, and there is a particular kind of Talk Backer who terrifies filmmakers, the venal, virulant asshole who exists only to shit on things. Most of the time, it’s obvious that these people are very young, and that they don’t really care what the topic is. They just love the anonymity of the Internet and the chance to smear their own waste over whatever is being discussed. It is this particular group of people that Kevin takes aim at in this film, and it’s such a particular reference that I had to just sit there and shake my head, amazed. In particular, the stuff at the end of the movie had me gasping for air, delighted and horrified at the same time. The majority of you aren’t going to recognize yourselves up there, but if you do, and you’re offended by Smith’s jokes... GOOD. FUCK YOU. You deserve it, and I’m delighted to see someone get it so right.

I’ll definitely see the film again when it’s released, just to see how Alannis Morrissette was worked into the movie if nothing else. And I’m willing to bet the eventual DVD release of the film is loaded with extras and behind the scenes footage and other chocolatey goodness. In some ways, this is like one of the biggest home movies ever made. Both Kevin’s wife and daughter (as Baby Silent Bob) are in the film, and there’s going to come a time when he looks back on this and marvels at the experience and the sheer manic energy of the film itself. Overall, it’s a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when it’s released in a few weeks. Until then...