GLITTER is a strong contender for the year's worst film, but indie film-maker Kevin Smith makes a late bid with this 20 million-dollar ego trip.

Fans of the writer-director's work will know Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) are drug-dealing halfwits who made cameos in Smith's previous four films - Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma.

Clearly enamoured of his gregarious and foul-mouthed creations, Smith has gifted them a big screen adventure of their own.

The hapless twosome are distraught to learn a film is being made about their comic book alter-egos, Bluntman and Chronic, but they will not be getting any royalties.

Determined to ruin the film, Jay and Bob travel across country from New Jersey to Hollywood, meeting colourful characters along the way.

Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back is Smith's attempt to make fun of his own back catalogue. Thus he has the duo lampooning characters from his previous works. He even criticises Miramax, the studio financing this picture.

It's difficult to say quite how excruciating this film is. If you haven't seen any of Smith's other films, the jokes will fly over your head. And even if you have, the comedy is hardly sophisticated.

Jay and Silent Bob are not strong enough characters to carry an entire picture and some of their diatribes leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

The film serves up lazy parodies of Dawson's Creek, Scooby Doo and Planet Of The Apes, plus a humourless interlude on the set of the fictitious Good Will Hunting 2. And since Smith is a Star Wars fanatic, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill both have small, thankless cameo roles.