...
...
.....
.......Jersey Girl?
Why Jersey Girl?
I mean, I know this is coming from the era of when Ben Affleck was everywhere and very over-exposed and people decided to hate him because they realized he was being over-exposed for no good reason, but really? Jersey Girl? Why not Gigli, or Changing Lanes or one of the truly awful films he did from that era. Why...Jersey Girl? I mean, if you want to talk about a totally unoffensive movie, that's Jersey Girl. I can't really explain it other than the Ben Affleck factor...oh and let's not forget Kevin Smith.
At this point in time, Kevin Smith had been known for his adult, somewhat crude comedies where his characters talk on and on about geek topics and taboo topics and it all falls somewhere in between mildly amusing and extremely hilarious. Mostly mildly amusing, but Jay and Silent Bob had it's moments. I found the first five of the View Askew films to be so good to own four of them on DVD (I didn't get Clerks 1 as I just found it boring...and Clerks 2 was fine until the last third of the film). Anyhow, the point is, that until his last few fans, I was a fan of Kevin Smith and I did see Jersey Girl. What did I think?
I thought it was okay. Not great, not let me bust down the door and buy this DVD, but it was okay. A nice little story. However, the thing that stood out was that this was by far Kevin Smith's most mature work.
Uh-oh.
That's like having the Jackass guys try and remake Dr. Strangelove. The Dr. Strangelove guys would be pissed because quite frankly, if you absolutely have to remake this movie, you DON'T want the Jackass guys doing it. As for the Jackass fans, they would be pissed too. Why are you trying to be all good and remake a classic! Go do something stupid! Run down the hall and slam your head into a wall! Staple your testicles to your leg! That's what they're paying for. They paid for Jersey Girl to have a bunch of Kevin Smith-style penis and fart jokes and you know what? They didn't get it. They got a somewhat serious rom-com that had no toilet humour in sight. In other words, Kevin Smith was trying to branch out and do something different and they murdered him for it. That's why they hate this movie. They think this was the start of Kevin Smith's downward spiral. Without Jersey Girl, we don't get Cop Out. He wouldn't be trying to go mainstream and please the world instead of his legion of insanely loyal, not-insubstantial fan base. This is my opinion:
The guy can do what he wants. He tried and to me, it worked, but because of the negative backlash, because this wasn't Jay and Silent Bob part 6, people hate it. It's like Sean Connery -- he did Zathura after Bond and everyone hated it because they wanted Sean Connery to be Bond. I say hey, Connery is the best as Bond, no doubt, but the man has the right too to be something other than James Bond. Kevin Smith had the right to go mainstream if he wanted...it's a shame this movie is "hated", because quite honestly, it's not half-bad, but because of the stupid expectations by his fan base who only want a certain style of humor, it's reviled. Which point-blank, isn't right.
Rating: Worth the hate? Nope.
- Stephenstein
No comments:
Post a Comment