“Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection” Blu-ray Movie Review

By Christopher Smith

Three films, two of which score.

Those would be Smith’s breakout movie “Clerks,” which is an ultra-low-budget, black-and-white comedic wonder, and “Chasing Amy,” a romantic comedy that stars Ben Affleck as Holden McNeil, who falls hard for fellow cartoonist Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams). Too bad for him that she’s a lesbian.

What makes this film so worthwhile is writer-director Smith’s sensitive script. He knows there is nothing funny about falling in love and he takes Holden’s feelings seriously. Holden is in love with Alyssa’s wit, her personality, her wonderful laugh, the special way she looks at him--her whole being. He is desperate. Alyssa may like women, but she also happens to be everything Holden wants in a woman. Can he tell her so without pushing her away? Somehow he finds the courage, and the result is the film’s best, most heart-felt moment.

The worst film in the set is the risible “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” which allegedly is a satire on Hollywood, but which becomes the butt of the joke.

Jason Mewes and Smith star as Jay and Silent Bob, a couple of moronic slackers who become incensed when they learn a movie is being made about Bluntman and Chronic, the cartoon superheroes based on their lives. Furious they’re not getting a cut, Jay and Silent Bob head west to Hollywood, where in their travels, they learn all sorts of useful things, such as how to get a free ride from a trucker or how to offend a nun in ways that can’t be revealed here.

Too dumb to be provocative and too self-indulgent to say anything meaningful about Hollywood, the film isn’t funny--but it is a mess.

Grade: B