by Robert Bouffard, Editor
I was supposed to do this binge article three years ago when Jay and Silent Bob Reboot came out, as I originated the “SiftPop writer binges a franchise for the first time” model with The Fast and the Furious. But seeing as how these movies are scattered across streaming and rental platforms, I abandoned the idea at the time. But now, Clerks III is coming out, and I’d like to see that movie! So here I am, watching the films of the View Askewniverse for the first time.
Some spoilers ahead!
Clerks
The one movie that I’d seen coming into this whole exercise, Clerks still carries with it the small-time appeal that made it so beloved in the first place. It’s difficult not to be charmed by the DIY feel of the whole thing, and it deftly captures the malaise and the “it’s everyone else’s fault” attitude that is so easy to fall into. I enjoy a lot of the sometimes random dialogue scenes because it just feels like writer-director Kevin Smith (the architect of this whole universe) wrote down his stream of consciousness one night and then filmed it for a movie. I could do without most of the overly crude humor, but there are still lots of good comedy bits sprinkled in throughout (though I don’t think it ever tops the gum salesman at the beginning). And I don’t see any chance I’d have an ounce of patience for Randal (Jeff Anderson) in real life. Ultimately, I’m glad Smith probably made exactly the movie he wanted to make at this point in his career; it just still isn’t anything spectacular to me now, watching it almost 30 years after it first came out.
Score: 6/10
Mallrats
I had no idea what to expect going into Mallrats after Clerks, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Off the bat, I liked the slacker combo of T.S. (Jeremy London) and Brodie (Jason Lee) much more than Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal, mostly because Lee is on an entirely different level comedically than everyone else. He sells each line of dialogue so well, and is simply a riot all the way through. I also typically enjoy rom-coms, and if they’re not painfully bad, there’s a better chance than not that I’ll at least have a good time, and I did that and then some with Mallrats. The game show is just a perfectly ridiculous rom-com ending, and a heart-to-heart with Stan Lee with talk of superhero sex organs sprinkled in is not something I never realized I needed. So while there were some jokes that still fell flat to me (Michael Rooker eating pretzels, for one), and while the story is paper thin in terms of having something to say, Mallrats still has heart, and is a modest step up from Clerks.
Score: 7/10
Chasing Amy
Chasing Amy is the first of Smith’s movies that I have no idea what to make of. Its narrative twists and turns all seem to come out of left field, and scene by scene, I was changing my stance on whether it had aged well or poorly. My conclusion is… I can’t really tell how well it’s aged. In one sense, I like the idea of Smith working through and coming to terms with a partner’s past, and it seems to be the most mature of his movies so far, at least in its intentions. But at the same time, the way it deals with LGBTQIA+ topics seems shaky at best (though I appreciate Alyssa’s (Joey Lauren Adams) comment about it all the way down the road in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. It shows some potential growth from Smith). It’s definitely a time capsule in this sense, and again, you can tell Smith’s heart is on the right track, but it still feels off, especially when it comes to Lee’s character’s homophobia being fueled by (gasp!) his own latent homosexuality. How original! I definitely don’t think it hits the comedic highs of Mallrats, Ben Affleck, while fine, isn’t really the most compelling of protagonists, and long, wordy speeches aren’t the most captivating way of taking in dialogue. I’ll definitely look back at Chasing Amy as an interesting time capsule, though I’m not sure just how often I’ll find myself revisiting it, if at all.
Score: 6/10
Dogma
Dogma Shmogma. As someone with a similarly religious upbringing to Smith, and who’s since moved on from that faith, I was most excited to check out Dogma. I was expecting a Life of Brian with a Kevin Smith twist. Much to my chagrin, Dogma turned out to be a bloated, exposition-heavy, high concept script from Smith. He’s clearly swinging for the fences here, and while I do honestly appreciate the swing, it just doesn’t work for me. The majority of the religious commentary, while well-intentioned, is mostly surface level, and I didn’t find myself either nodding in agreement, or gasping at a new idea I hadn’t thought of before. Each time a conversation about the nature of God came up, I waited for it to be brought to the next level with thoughtfulness and honesty, much like the conversations about sexuality in Chasing Amy, but they were all cut off by either a plot development or one of Smith’s trademark lowbrow jokes. I appreciate what he’s going for; I really do. And I think Affleck and Matt Damon are having a ton of fun, along with the rest of the cast (Chris Rock was my personal favorite), but it didn’t amount to enough for me, since it seemed more intent on being a wild stoner road trip comedy instead of a commentary. I just thought Smith balanced his story and jokes with what he had to say much better in the preceding films. It was also fun to hear Howard Shore’s theme for God, which sounded a whole lot like what would eventually be his Rivendell theme in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Score: 5/10
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
I’d like to play this safe because if I don’t, I know Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith himself) will show up at my house and beat me up, but I just can’t. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back just didn’t work for me. Like at all. The internet commenters in this movie are right — the duo work best in small doses, as background characters in other movies. Besides Silent Bob’s speech in Chasing Amy, they’ve been my least favorite part in each of the previous four movies. To me, it was more off-putting each time they broke the fourth wall to comment on an audience watching a movie like this because I just wasn’t enjoying the rest of the movie! The main thing for me is that it lacks heart. Even when there were jokes that didn’t age well, or that just weren’t my sense of humor, I could appreciate what Smith was going for in his previous four efforts — either something personal (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy), or a larger commentary on something personal (Dogma). Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back doesn’t have that, and the meta jokes about the movie industry and gratuitous references were more grating than anything. This is all likely because I didn’t build up a fondness for Smith’s movies over the years of them coming out, but rather that I’ve watched them over the course of a couple weeks. So I’ll end with the few things that I’d say are genuine positives: Good Will Hunting 2 was a good bit; an early Will Ferrell performance was enjoyable to see, since he brought exactly what I love about him to the role; the references to, and cameos from, other View Askew movies were fun (though I wished I was watching one of those again); Smith must be a genuinely good dude since he’s able to get cameos from people like Stan Lee, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and George Carlin, so I don’t mind binging his movies, even if they’re not all for me.
Score: 3/10
Clerks II
Going back to his roots of small, character-driven comedies, I think Smith finds what worked so well for him in the past (particularly with Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy) with Clerks II. You can feel him working through a lot of personal anxieties about life and his artistic output, and its meta self-awareness feels 100 times more assured and honest than it did in Strike Back. The scene in the jail cell is a particular highlight. Like all of his movies that are more than 15 years old, some stuff hasn’t aged well, but there’s a certain maturity within Clerks II that’s hard to ignore. Smith is working in ideas about aging, taking responsibility, and finding what’s real in life, all with an extremely effective and morose final shot. For a guy who’s notorious for making ugly-looking movies, the final shot works really well and hit me more than I expected. While all the comedy isn’t for me (and I could do without Lord of the Rings slander), and the main love story is pretty undercooked, I still feel like this is close to Smith’s best work of what I’ve seen, simply because of the inherent truth and honesty that’s layered in every second of the film. And now I’m fully expecting there to be an Ahsoka joke in Clerks III.
Score: 7/10
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Since I can tell that Smith was at least trying to say something about parenting and getting older, I can’t totally bash Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, but I would certainly like to. Like the previous Jay and Silent Bob installment, my biggest gripe with this one is that Jay and Silent Bob should never be leads. I know the story is about him becoming a dad, but while I can barely stand Jay as a 20-something, I can’t stand him at all at 45 years old. Like all the reboots, remakes, and sequels this is lampooning, the leads have lost their charm with age. What legitimately started to anger me, though, was the nonstop references to previous View Askew movies, and all the rest of Hollywood. They aren’t clever like they’ve been in the past — they’re just thrown in there for their own sake. Only a single one didn’t feel cynical: the reference to a certain Squeakquel caught me off guard and made me laugh. The rest of the movie just felt like Smith writing an essay about what he thinks about modern Hollywood and letting his characters deliver it like a speech, instead of telling a story that illustrates his feelings. And the KKK (?!?!?!) and references to diversity being forced and out of place felt wildly misguided. Again, there is some heart here, but only the tiniest bit, and there’s not nearly enough. (Though I will add there’s a certain moment in the beginning of the credits that was genuinely earnest, heartwarming, and emotional, and yet again proves Smith must just be a great guy who’s easy to get along with.)
Score: 2/10
Franchise Ranking:
- Mallrats
- Clerks II
- Clerks
- Chasing Amy
- Dogma
- Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
- Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
I know this ended on a down note with me really disliking Reboot, but I actually did enjoy watching these movies. Kevin Smith is a one-of-a-kind filmmaker, at least with the movies, in that he’s kind of refused to change. And the mileage on that refusal can vary wildly with each subsequent installment. For someone coming to these movies for the first time in 2022, they’re perfectly fine at best, but I can see how they would be exciting for people to stumble upon them in the ’90s. The top four in my rankings are some that I can see myself coming back to multiple times in the future — there are some great characters, great moments, and a real feeling of earnestness and introspection that’ll likely make them last in my mind. And I did this whole exercise to be prepared to see Clerks III, and having scene what came before, I’m genuinely excited to be seeing it. Mallrats was my favorite of all these movies, but I’m definitely invested in the lives of the Clerks characters. The Clerks movies were where Smith seemed to be his most honest and earnest, so I’m hoping for more of the same in Clerks III!
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