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Dogma DVD

Danny Kim's Review

Do you know what makes a human being decent?



The fourth movie by writer/actor/director Kevin Smith, 1999's "Dogma", is a hilarious look into the ideology behind organized religion, specifically Catholicism. With a great cast and laugh-out-loud humor, you can not go wrong with this movie.

The storyline of the movie is pretty interesting: Two angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) are trying to re-enter Heaven through the usage of a loop hole in Catholic Dogma. Their re-entrance would mean the end of existance. The movie brings in and questions many of the beliefs behind religion, such as the gender of God (played by Alanis Morissette), the ethnicity of Jesus (as told by Chris Rock's character, Rufus, the 13th apostle), descendants of Christ (Linda Fiorentino), and the infallibility of God (as told by the Voice Of God, played by Alan Rickman).

The best part of this movie, as well as the other Kevin Smith movies, is the involvement of Jay And Silent Bob (played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, respectively). Jay's vulgar mouth and passion for getting high combined with the mystery of Silent Bob just makes the movie all the more funnier and entertaining.

This movie is a comedy delight for those who love this kind of humor (pot jokes, swearing, and all around stupidity). If you like this movie, you should also check out the Kevin Smith movie "Mallrats".

Amazon.com Editorial Review

Kevin Smith is a conundrum of a filmmaker: he's a writer with brilliant, clever ideas who can't set up a simple shot to save his life. It was fine back when Smith was making low-budget films like Clerks and Chasing Amy, both of which had an amiable, grungy feel to them, but now that he's a rising director who's attracting top talent and tackling bigger themes, it might behoove him to polish his filmmaking. That's the main problem with Dogma--it's an ambitious, funny, aggressively intelligent film about modern-day religion, but while Smith's writing has matured significantly (anyone who thinks he's not topnotch should take a look at Chasing Amy), his direction hasn't. It's too bad, because Dogma is ripe for near-classic status in its theological satire, which is hardly as blasphemous as the protests that greeted the movie would lead you to believe.
Two banished angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) have discovered a loophole that would allow them back into heaven; problem is, they'd destroy civilization in the process by proving God fallible. It's up to Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), a lapsed Catholic who works in an abortion clinic, to save the day, with some help from two so-called prophets (Smith and Jason Mewes, as their perennial characters Jay and Silent Bob), the heretofore unknown 13th apostle (Chris Rock), and a sexy, heavenly muse (the sublime Salma Hayek, who almost single-handedly steals the film). In some ways Dogma is a shaggy dog of a road movie--which hits a comic peak when Affleck and Fiorentino banter drunkenly on a train to New Jersey, not realizing they're mortal enemies--and segues into a comedy-action flick as the vengeful angels (who have a taste for blood) try to make their way into heaven. Smith's cast is exceptional--with Fiorentino lending a sardonic gravity to the proceedings, and Jason Lee smirking evilly as the horned devil Azrael--and the film shuffles good-naturedly to its climax (featuring Alanis Morissette as a beatifically silent God), but it just looks so unrelentingly... subpar. Credit Smith with being a daring writer but a less-than-stellar director.