Dogma: Blu-ray DVD Review (2008)

Doggerel in hi-def.

Kevin Smith begins his foray into suburban absurdity with a disclaimer that asks audiences--and film critics--not to be offended by his film, or to take it seriously.

He’s just having fun, after all, and doesn’t mean to anger anyone--certainly not Catholics, whose religion he crucifies and drags through the mud for 125 minutes. All in the name of a good time, of course.

Maybe it was the devil that made Smith lose his nerve and add that disclaimer. But if he did it because of pressure from angry Catholic groups who denounced “Dogma” as spurious trash worthy of excommunication upon the film's 1999 release, then he’s a fool who undermined his film and his reputation as a director who once had something to say.

Not that he has anything of interest to say here. One could pray all day for “Dogma,” spritz its script with Holy Water and genuflect to the high heavens before viewing it, and still it would be doggerel, a crude, vacuous, unfunny bit of misogyny that wants audiences to gasp at its naughty ideas, all of which lack substance and bite.

It’s true--if you don’t count how bad “Dogma” is, nothing about it shocks. It is, in fact, a rather half-hearted attempt to reach out and pull Catholicism’s pigtails, which could have been interesting had Smith fully understood and explored the hypocrisies he sensed within Catholicism and then skewered them with wit.

He doesn’t. His film--which is about two fallen angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) who have found a loophole to get back into heaven--makes the dull mistake of mining its humor from the gutter before wrapping it around reams of mind-numbing theology. That’s one of the reasons the film fails--Smith’s dialogue, so sharp in his previous films, is too dense to pack a punch.

In the end, “Dogma” can best be defined by one of its scenes. When a giant walking pile of feces bubbles up from a toilet and starts killing people in a bar, three things become clear: the film’s creative think tank is woefully low, the director is desperate for a laugh, and he will do anything to get that laugh. At my 1999 screening, audiences were silent throughout that scene--and throughout much of the movie--suggesting that Smith should have flushed his script and started anew.

Rated R. Grade: D