‘Silent Bob’ should have kept his mouth shut

In Theaters

JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK. Written and directed by Kevin Smith. 99 minutes. Rated R.

The new Kevin Smith movie “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” uses the F-word with such a mind-numbing frequency, there wouldn’t be a film if the word didn’t exist.

Why does the film exist? Allegedly, it’s supposed to be a satire on Hollywood – an insider’s look filled with hip jokes about the movie industry, celebrities, pop culture and especially about Smith’s Jersey Chronicles, which began with 1994’s “Clerks.” The series went on to include 1995’s “Mallrats,” which starred Shannen Doherty as a shopoholic; 1997’s “Chasing Amy,” which starred Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck as mixed-up lovers; and 1999’s “Dogma,” which starred Affleck and Matt Damon as fallen angels.

According to Smith, his latest effort, which reunites these actors in cameos that range from the uninspired to the downright ridiculous, ends the series.

Let’s hope so. The film is a mess, an unfunny wreck, whose racist tirades, drug references, homophobia and jokes about oral sex and women’s genitalia are more often boring and desperate than they are provocative and smart.

Obviously, that runs counter to Smith’s objectives – with so many expletives being hurled at the screen, there’s never a moment in “Silent Bob” when it isn’t clear how much Smith wants to provoke. Yet his film is too dumb to push buttons and too self-indulgent to say anything interesting about the industry he’s only half-heartedly willing to skewer.

Purists might delight in the film’s raunch and drug humor, but anyone seeking another “Clerks” or “Chasing Amy,” two films that prove Smith can make good movies, likely will be bewildered and disappointed.

In the film, Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith) learn a movie is being made about Bluntman and Chronic, cartoon superheroes inspired by their lives.

Furious that they’re not getting a piece of the action, they 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 printed in a family newspaper.

Miramax Studios budgeted “Silent Bob” at $20 million, a huge amount of money for an independent filmmaker whose best movie, “Clerks,” was made for $27,000. But Smith, ever the prankster who, for some reason, continues to view himself as the ultimate outsider, has tossed the money away to intentionally make a bad movie, one that feels like “Ulysses” crossed with “Freddy Got Fingered.”

The problem? By snubbing his nose at Hollywood, he’s also snubbed his nose at audiences.

Grade: F

On Video and DVD

SEE SPOT RUN. Directed by John Whitesell. Written by George Gallo, Dan Baron and Chris Faber. 94 minutes. Rated PG.

To say John Whitesell’s “See Spot Run” is one of the worst dogs to trot into video stores in a while might seem too easy a clich?. But when you parade that cliche in front of a movie that exists only so it can smear its talentless star, David Arquette, in dog feces, well, that clich? comes off a whole lot fresher in comparison.

Targeted at preteen boys, the film takes the famous children’s story and turns it into a film packed with flatulence and other scatological jokes.

Sound child-friendly? It isn’t. But in spite of its PG rating, the film nevertheless is eager to splash about in its humor. It doesn’t just want to continue pop culture’s love affair with excrement – it wants to take it into cheaper territory by presenting it for family consumption.

That’s a major (yet not surprising) turning point for movies and our culture – and one that Warner Bros. can proudly call its own.

Grade: F

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.