I like Kevin Smith but honestly, other than Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, I really can't stand any of his movies. I love pop culture and comics as much as anyone here, but I just can't get into his stuff. Maybe it's because I'm just older than the generation his films are aimed at.
My first introduction to him was Mallrats. I had never heard of the guy. Someone told me this is the 90's version of Fast Times at Ridgemont High with a lot of comic book stuff thrown in. I thought that sounded interesting as hell. I love stuff like Fast Times, Dazed and Confused, American Grafitti, etc. I was told that if those movies represented the 60s, 70s, and 80s, Mallrats was the 90s. Sorry, but this movie doesn't even hold a candle to those others.
First off, this movie does not even know what it is. Is it a comedy, is it a drama, is it an outlandish comedy? Maybe I was just sullen by the time I watched it but I just couldn't engage with any of these characters. When it finally got to Batman grappling hooks and actually using the Force, it just completely took me out of this film. To me, that and the psuedo reality of the film just did not mix.
As for Jay and Silent Bob, at this point I thought they were just awful, their antics just does not belong in this type of film. "Snootchie-bootchies?" I've known a gazillion pot heads in my life and NO ONE has ever used this terminology.......Jay and Silent Bob work great in their own movie because of the outrageousness of their characters. They don't fit into a reality based movie IMHO.
But this is just one man's opinion. for those of you that like all his stuff, more power to you. I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying it is, for the most part, not my cup of tea.
