Mallrats
I’ve been putting off doing any reviews of Kevin Smith films for some time now, as I feared that I wouldn’t be able to do them justice. However, after watching Mallrats again last night, I decided it was time to stop avoiding them and get on and do one.
In case you’ve never heard of Kevin Smith, he’s the Writer and Director of several films that have been labelled the...
I’ve been putting off doing any reviews of Kevin Smith films for some time now, as I feared that I wouldn’t be able to do them justice. However, after watching Mallrats again last night, I decided it was time to stop avoiding them and get on and do one.
In case you’ve never heard of Kevin Smith, he’s the Writer and Director of several films that have been labelled the New Jersey series. These films include (in chronological order) Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy (my favourite) and Dogma.
The reason they are called a series is because they basically exist in the same universe with some characters featuring across several films, in particular Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith). Smith also tends to use the same actors to play different roles in other films. For example Ben Affleck plays one character here, a different character in "Chasing Amy" and a different character again in "Dogma". Anyway, as usual if you don’t want to know about the plot jump on a section.
Plot
T.S. (Jeremy London) and Brodie (Jason Lee) have been dumped by their respective girlfriends Brandi (Claire Forlani) and Rene (Shannen Doherty). They decide to visit the local mall to try and cheer themselves up. While there they discover a stage being built for a cheesy blind date style game show. The game show is being organised by Brandi’s father (who hates T.S.) and Brandi herself is to be the female contestant.
In order to try and wreck the show they enlist the help of Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith). Meanwhile the sleazy manager of a men’s fashion store (Ben Affleck) is hitting on Rene. After several run ins with the Mall Security and guidance from Miss Ivannah the three nippled topless fortune teller, the duo hatch the perfect plan to get the girls back.
Video / Audio
The video quality is very good. The picture comes in a 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen format. There are some minor instances of scratches and film grain that I noticed but these are few and far between. All together it’s a more than adequate picture.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is also very good. There’s plenty of use of all the channels, you can here plenty of background noise in the mall. Nothing to complain about here.
Extras
Here we come to one of the most impressive things about the disk, it’s pretty much crammed with extras. View Askew’s look back at Mallrats is a twenty-minute featurette that consists of interviews with the cast. It’s mainly interviews with Kevin Smith, but there’s also Jason Mewes, Ben Affleck and Jason Lee.
The Feature Commentary is by Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Scott Mosier and Vincent Peraira. This is one of the best commentary tracks I’ve ever sat through. The guys really have a good time making it and although there’s a lot of joking around you still get plenty of background info. There’s also a multi-angle feature on the commentary that shows them making the commentary in a window in the center of the screen.
There’s over an hour of Deleted Scenes. One of these scenes is 30 minutes long and makes up a completely different opening of to the film. This is then followed by a load of smaller clips. All clips have a brief introduction by Kevin Smith and Vincent Pereira.
There’s a selection of around 100 Production photos. MCA Soundtrack Presentation is a short clip of the soundtrack followed by a music video for "Build Me Up Buttercup" by "The Goops!", the video is pretty funny as it stars Jay and Silent Bob. Finally there are some fairly extensive Production Notes and Cast And Crew Bios, a Theatrical Trailer and a Universal Web Link.
There’s also a Hidden Extra, if you go onto the robots eyes from the Bonus Material menu and select them, you get a short video from Kevin Smith telling you to stop look for Easter Eggs on your DVD.
Overall
I was first introduced to Mr Smiths work with the film Dogma. I really enjoyed the film and after several recommendations I thought I’d try some of his other work. I then got Clerks and unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get into this film. I started to suspect that maybe Dogma was a one of for me until I got hold of the Criterion edition of Chasing Amy. What a fantastic film, I won’t say too much because I’ll review it separately, but it did restore my confidence in Kevin Smith films.
Finally, with my faith restored I ordered the special edition of Mallrats. I actually got the disk from view askew web site (http://www.viewaskew.com) where you can get the disk personally signed by Kevin Smith. So did I enjoy the film? Actually I did immensely enjoy it, I had some reservations because it was rather slated by critics, but for me they were unfounded.
Smith excels at creating clever, witty dialogue and there’s plenty of it here. There are some really stand out funny moments, like Jay and Silent Bobs comic strip style attempts to wreck the stage. Also the scene with Miss Ivannah the three nippled topless fortune teller is hilarious. I don’t think I could pick a particular actor / actress that shines because the entire main cast are great. Having said that, Jason Lee is excellent as the cruelly quick-witted Brodie, his constant one-liners and put downs amuse throughout.
Would you like the film? Well that depends, if you watched and enjoyed any other Kevin Smith films then I’d say go for it. If on the other hand you haven’t then it really depends on the individual. If you like young comedy with extensive sharp (and often very crude) dialogue then give it a try. Also if the thought of lots of Star Wars and Comic Strip references / gags appeals to you then give it a go.
The DVD itself is excellent. The Video quality is good and the audio track is excellent. Where the DVD really shines though is the extensive list of extras, especially the picture-in-picture commentary track. If you’re a Smith fan, then it’s a must have for your collection.
This isn’t my favourite Smith film that place goes to Chasing Amy. I would say that it’s probably on a level peg with Dogma. As far as a mark goes, I think it gets a well deserved 4.5.
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