Has Kevin Smith Lost His Mojo?
- Andy Ayala
- Feb 19, 2017
- 4 min read
A skill I always respected in the film industry was directors who wrote and directed their own work, Spike Lee, Spike Jonze, Quentin Tarantino, Darren Aronofsky, Coen Brothers, Edgar Wright, David Lynch, and of course Kevin Smith. Now, Kevin Smith's screenplays were always filled with similar themes of controversial subjects, like religion, homosexuality, abortion and he even squeezed in a few comic references every now and again (not to mention his movies always took place in New Jersey). Now each of these themes is what made Kevin Smith unique in his own way, but in the past few years his films have kinda lost touch of what attracted audiences to Kevin Smith's films in the first place. With a recent announcement of a new Jay and Silent Bob film... Should you be excited? Let's take a look a his career from 1994-2001 and ask ourselves "Has Kevin Smith Lost His Mojo?"
In October of 94' Smith introduced the world to his " View Askewniverse" with his debut film Clerks, a black and white indie film revolving around a convenience store clerk... Now til this day Clerk has some of the best dialogue in my opinion. The characters seem to have natural conversations, such as Star Wars, past sexual experiences, or just good ol' fashion relationship problems. Shot on a $27,000 budget, Smith captured the realism of the environment as well as the humor of the situations in the environment (Trust me I know, I work at 7-11...These customers are real), while creating Iconic characters to be later used in View Askewniverse films, Like Dante, Randal, Jay & Silent Bob, Clerks launched Smith's career.
Hooray, thanks to Clerks, Kevin Smith is actually getting somewhere. He releases his 2nd film in October of 95', Mallrats with a $6M budget, which obviously now he can afford a bigger cast (and Stan Lee). This is Smith's first film with frequent collaborator Ben Affleck, his film lets it be known that Smith is definitely a comic book fan, and introduces and re-uses characters in his cinematic universe. making more than 7x the amount he made for Clerks there's no doubt Smith has a career ahead of him.
Kevin Smith, oh Kevin Smith, in 1997 His 2nd film distributed by Miramax, Chasing Amy was released. This film was a bold move to be respected (actually another one of my favorite dialogues by him) Smith covers and tackles a lot of Gay/Lesbian issues. This film also went on to be well received by a lot of critics. Though another Ben Affleck movie, it does not take away the experience, making only a couple hundred thousand at the box office Chasing Amy was undoubtedly a cult classic.
Controversy after Controversy, In 1999 (to me the height of Kevin's career), Smith loads his guns up again and kinda picks fun at religion in his film Dogma. In my personal opinion Dogma is his best film. I can only imagine how many People got offended by this film, From abortions to a black 13th disciple, to god being a woman. I think it was done so well not only did it piss people off, but it also made some good points using dialogue again, all while still in his View Askewniverse...This being his largest budget film at the time, it looks like it's time for Kevin to go Hollywood!
Uh oh, looks like somebody's going Hollywood. 2001 was the year for Mr. Smith. Now with a $22M budget let's make the perfect movie, he takes his entire View Askewniverse and wraps it all up in one final film! Star studded cast, good humor, and even references his previous works in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back...Now, what can you possibly do after Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back...Nothing!!!!!!, 3 years later Smith Decides to team up 3 amazing actors: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and Liv Taylor...Why? for a film named Jersey Girl, not feeling it...To some Jay and Silent Bob was a masterpiece. You don't follow that up with Jersey Girl. A couple years later he attempts a comeback with a sequel to his legendary debut, Clerks. I thought Clerks 2 was cool but it doesn't need a part 2. Now this is where you see Smith kinda slipping... Using almost the same techniques, Star Wars arguments and Sex Jokes. His Cinematic universe shouldn't have even opened back up.
In 2011 he attempts to make a horror film called Red State, well at least the film is set up as a horror film. Three dudes get kidnapped by a religious cult killing gays and by the 2nd half of the movie it just turns into a big shootout. John Goodman shooting people. Now it's cool but it ain't feel like Smith, I respect that lane he took but it made me wonder what's in store for Future Kevin Smith films...and not to mention the year before he directed Cop Out, a buddy cop film with Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan... one of the first Smith films I've seen get negative reviews. His latest film is I think is another horror film Tusk, fail...
Now here's the question??? Should we even be excited for anything he has in store in the future? I'm Sure Clerks 3 or Jay and Silent Bob 2 are going to recycle the same substance... Gays, Star Wars, Religion, Sex and Comics... he actually writes comic books, and does stand up and I don't even really like those either. He takes the Batman stuff too far (naming his daughter Harley Quinn). Jason Mewes went to rehab and that whole universe just fell apart. It's safe to say his prime is 94' - 01'.... Maybe someday the old Kevin will make a return.
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