On account of the fact that I am seemingly set to not see DOGMA till at least Saturday... I'm going to let ol Quint here provide you with the review. Quint, while suffering from various head injuries due to baseball bats to the back of his head here at the AICN headquarters... is still a damn fun judge of films. He goes in wanting to have a great time, and rarely walks in wanting to tear a movie apart. He's a consumate film geek, and here's his look at DOGMA...
Ahoy there, Constant Readers. Quint here once again, the notorious resident crusty seaman, this time with a review of Dogma, Kevin Smith's newest and most "controversial" film.
I have been a fan of Smith's for only about a year and half. I saw Chasing Amy first, then made my way to Clerks and then to Mallrats. I love them all, but if I had to pick a favorite, I'll go with Mallrats. I know I'm probably going to catch a lot of shit from the talkback regulars (and non-regulars for that matter) for picking Mallrats above highly independent Clerks or the more story driven Chasing Amy. I'm not saying at all that Clerks and Chasing Amy are bad or even lesser films, I'm just saying that Mallrats is my personal favorite. Why? Well, my movie value scale dictates that a movie must be entertaining above all else. A movie could have a great story, great acting, great sets, but if it isn't entertaining, then none of that matters. I think that Chasing Amy is Smith's best FILM, but I personally think that Mallrats is his best MOVIE.
The reason I bring that up is that I think your individual movie value scale will dictate how you feel about Dogma. If your scale is topped by Story and Structure, with entertainment value taking a back-seat, then you probably won't enjoy Dogma as much as I did. But if you, like me, choose entertainment value above all else then I think you'll dig Dogma a lot.
Dogma is above all else a comedy. I mean, this is a Kevin Smith film for Christ's sake. When watching it, you will know you are watching a Kevin Smith movie. The dialogue, the Smith characters from films past, the Star Wars references, the moment(s) when Silent Bob speaks. It's all Kevin Smith. It has its own distinctive feel, the Kevin Smith feel.
Hey, Kevin. Where were the Jaws references in this one? I mean, you've had them in all your past films, why not in Dogma? Just wondering.
Anyhow, the movie's purely entertaining and that's what I like about it. Some people say it drags from time to time... well, I guess it could for some people. Me, I love being put under the spell of Smith's dialogue so all the long dialogue scenes in the movie didn't bother me one bit. As a matter of fact, I probably liked the movie more because of them.
The actors all filled their respective parts. Affleck and Damon still have great chemistry, Hans... uh... I mean............... "Shoot the glass...".... um... oh yeah, Alan Rickman is good as the Metatron (AKA Voice of God), although he wasn't a very prominent character. Chris Rock didn't bug the hell out of me. George Carlin was great in what little screentime he had. He was way underused. Whoever made Smith cut out Carlin's scenes (and the Fat Albert scene for that matter) should be ashamed of themselves. Oh, well. Here's to hoping for a super duper, extras-laden DVD. Linda Fiorentino does a good job carrying the film, although not too terribly memorable. Salma is basically... Salma. OK, Alanis as God. Her first appearance as God is laughable, in a bad way, but you know what? She actually does a damn good job of the actual performance. She has the perfect look in her eye, the perfect smile on her face. She pulled it off, but be prepared for the first impression.
God Bless Jay and Silent Bob. I could watch these two all fuckin' day. Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith himself have a perfect comedy duo that should go down in history among the great comic duos of all time: Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Valenti and the Religious Right. He-he. In all seriousness, this movie wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining for me if these two characters weren't in it. I mean the first line Silent Bob has in this film is amazing (too bad the original first line wasn't in there).
It was also great seeing the Smith regulars. Randall from Clerks makes an appearance. Jason Lee has the small, but important part of Azrael and plays it terrifically. Hell, even Walter Flanagan is in it!
Dogma is a film that I feel I can watch over and over and over again, much like all of Kevin Smith's previous movies. There's not one thing in this movie that bothered me terribly. Sure, most of the CGI effects looked lame, but that's only 25 seconds of the whole movie. The Shit Demon, though. Holy Shit! Pardon the pun. I love it, I love it and I want a McFarlane Shit Demon toy!
I am one of the people that couldn't resist reading the script, but my reaction seems to be slightly different from most of the other Dogma reviews I've read from people who read the script. I wasn't disappointed at all. Maybe it was because I read the script so long ago that I had forgotten most of it. Maybe it was because I knew that the Fat Albert scene was cut out and that Carlin's scenes were trimmed. I don't know.
In regard to the controversy over the movie.... I applaud it. Thank you Catholic League. Thanks, really. Because of your outburst, you will most certainly attract a lot more people to this movie than you dissuaded. Kevin Smith has said in many interviews that he was baffled at the Church's stand on his film. After seeing the movie, quite frankly, so am I. I mean, Father Geek and myself had a conversation after the movie where we brought up Stigmata and Carpenter's Vampires as films that portray the Catholic Church much more negatively, yet got no comment from the Church. It is quite clear to anybody without their head up their ass that Dogma is a farce and that none of the stuff Smith brings up is to be taken totally seriously. Why don't we just label Blazing Saddles as a racist film? Because we know not to take the racist stuff in the movie seriously. It is only used to make a point. Same in Dogma.
I dug this movie a whole bunch and I think that if you go into Dogma wanting and expecting a fuckin' hilarious good time, then you will get it. Go have fun with this movie. Afterall, what else are movies for?
-Quint
