I feel like I could just re-post most of my review of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back here and most of it is going to still apply. This movie was not made to stand on its own, much like 'Strike Back', Reboot relies heavily on you being familiar with the previous films in the Askew Universe. This was not a film made for anyone outside of the already existing fan base, though that isn't exactly a negative criticism. So long as you get into it knowing this, you can just check out the previous movies and if you like them, give this a watch. If you're not willing to check out the previous films, don't bother watching this one.
The big thing to note is that this is the most meta movie I have ever watched in my entire life. So Jay and Silent Bob Reboot are about Jay and Silent Bob trying to stop Kevin Smith from making a new Jay and Silent Bob movie, specifically a reboot of the original movie. There were meta-jokes in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, but they were just kind of jokes and not fundamentally the story of the movie. There are also so many times the characters in this movie shit all over many of Kevin Smith's films outside of the Askew Movies, such as Jersey Girl, Copout, and even Tusk. The amount of knowledge you need to have about Kevin Smiths Career to catch all the jokes is astonishing.
While it still goes for the over the top nature that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back had, Reboot is a bit more grounded in that under all that there is an actual emotional core to the story that is more than just a love letter to the franchise, it's kind of bringing the character arc of Jay to an end, at least to a degree. I brought up before it was nice to see Jay become more and more of a character as time went on, and now we do get to see him fully mature. Spoilers for Strike Back, but it turns out Jay and Justice had a kid together that Jay only now discovers by chance on his way to Hollywood. The whole idea is he's now trying to figure out how to be a father to his kid.
This is where things get a bit complicated because the premise is that while Justice was in jail for being a national diamond the if, Jay stopped going to visit her because they wouldn't allow them to have sex anymore. Where my issue here comes in is that it makes Jay seem borderline heartless. The reason I take issue is this was there were so many movies featuring him, and he is definitely crass and inconsiderate, but at no point did I ever feel like Jay was heartless. Despite being such a goofy movie, Jay did seem like he grew as a person and was able to see Justice as something more, so to just stop visiting her in Jail feels like it ignored what kind of person he was for the sake of making this movie happen.
The other thing I take issue with is how forced and unnatural much of his daughter's dialogue is throughout the movie. This is true most of the time, but when you get just Jay and his daughter together the scenes are fantastic. Jason Mewes's performance in this movie is the absolute best I have ever seen from him, and he and Harley Quinn (Funnily enough, this is Kevin Smiths real daughter playing the Role of Jays Daughter) have so much chemistry together that you can easily by them as being family. It is so well done in fact that it's easy to forget you are watching a movie in which a Russian Secret Agent infiltrates a nerd convention to assassinate Kevin Smith with an army of Cock Knockers.
There is also something about this movie that borders on the line of lazy and hilarious. See, Clerks 2 saw a near-identical repeat of narrative moments from Clerks 1, though thematically the whole thing made sense. In a lot of ways, the same thing happens with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, only thematically it's not at all relevant but another Meta Joke on top of all the others. On one hand, I can understand it feeling lazy, but there is enough about the story to separate itself from Strike Back to still feel like you are being told an original story. It's interesting to see Smith find a different use for the same trick when he came back with Clerks 2 and when he came back again with Reboot.
Also, the amount of jabs in the movie industry, in general, is pretty fantastic. Mind you, none of them feel like they were made in mean spirits, but they can be pretty damning all the same. There were shots fired at Reboots/Remakes about how they will recast the film to be more 'Diverse' as a lazy way to try and drum up an audience, shots at Hollywood for not having any creative ideas anymore and how they will inevitably have to start rebooting the reboots, and the list goes on. The movie is more than happy to take potshots at pretty much anyone, including his movies and career.
If you've been a fan of the past movies, like Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back there is a lot to love about this movie. Yeah, there are things like the Jay bit I went on about that rub me the wrong way and some bits of dialogue that feel forced and unnatural, but the good far outweighs the bad here.
I watched it after reading this. I actually quite enjoyed it. It reminded me of those older comedies from the early 2000s and late 90s that were just so dumb but still enjoyable. It actually made me want to watch Dude, Where's My Car? again, and search for more of those types of comedies that have kind of disappeared as of late.