Dogma

Two renegade angels attempt to get back into Heaven through a loophole that they find at a church in New Jersey. A woman who works at an abortion clinic is chosen by the voice of God to stop these men, along with the help of two “modern” prophets, the 13th unknown apostle and a muse/stripper, before the angels cross the threshold and lead to the end of all human existence. Simple enough?

Ambitious, original, funny film about a bunch of religious figures pasted into a modern fantastical world environment with a lot of tedious theological speak and a lot of “dick and fart” jokes (as Kevin would say). It’s hard to say who this type of movie is going to attract, since the young, non-religious hipsters (okay, I’m not so young but I still consider myself part of this group) will probably not appreciate all of the religious points made in this film, and the older, religious non-hipsters will probably not appreciate any of the more juvenile humor, which I thought was hilarious. Maybe the older, non-religious, hipsters or the younger, religious, non-hipsters? Either way, I personally enjoyed it for most of what it represented which was an alternative point of view on religion, Catholicism in particular, and the unrelenting humor written by Smith for his Jason Mewes and Chris Rock characters. Jay simply rocked! I could honestly say that if Silent Bob and Jay were not in this movie, I might be hard pressed to recommend it so highly.

One thing that you have to know going into this film is that it is a fantasy. A modern-day comedic fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless. On the whole, most of the mythical elements seemed to meche flawlessly within the modern-day environment, but others just appeared too fake for me to get around, like the wings on the angels and the horns on Jason Lee. Also, as much as I tried I could not help but think “that’s singer Alanis Morissette” when God made her first appearance. I just couldn’t help it! The more I tried not to think about it, the more I did. Isn’t it ironic? Anyway, I recommend this film under the two main conditions that I liked it which were the overall story, which was interesting, and the humor-laced script which was peppered with particularly great lines for Jay and Rock. I thought the Affleck, Damon and Rickman characters were a little too drowned in their explanatory religo-babble (a 20-minute trim-job might’ve helped), and Hayek distracting (well, in some good ways but also in some bad), but overall, the film was original, funny and certainly inventive.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian