Calling to mind both his original 1995 movie and the disgusting hunks of chemically treated meat encased in pig intestine and left spinning in Auntie Annes throughout the nation, Kevin Smith has come up with a title for his next film. In a recent tweet, the writer-director revealed that the title for his 20-years-later sequel to Mallrats will be the mysteriously monikered MallBrats.
Before Smith revealed that this whole thing is a tribute to his dead friend, thereby making it a lot harder to make fun of without feeling like a jerk, we had reminded everyone that there are actually several other projects he has to complete first. But now there’s a name, we can speculate on what the plot might entail. Presumably all the returning actors will sit around eating brats, like the title suggests, and wishing they had as good a reason as Ben Affleck for not being there? Or maybe it’s a reference to the original characters having a bunch of children who hang out at the mall, just like they did?
More likely, it’s a condensing of “Mall B Rats,” a general philosophical statement about the decaying condition of America’s shopping centers. And all of us, really, as time fulfills its Nietzschean promise, our bodies and societies returned to the dust, only to come back again in the cycle of eternal recurrence. Although let’s hope eternal recurrence skips Cop Out.