If history remembers Kevin Smith’s new movie (note: I wrote this review months ago) Zack and Miri Make a Porno, it probably won’t be as a chronicle of the U.S.’s current financial crisis, although the film’s snowy Pennsylvania setting, which is framed as an economically depressed wasteland where strip malls go to die, does provide a timely and empathetic backdrop for the film’s financially strapped characters. Instead, Zack and Miri’s claim to cinematic immortality is that it’s probably the raunchiest movie ever shown in a multiplex alongside fare like High School Musical 3 and Madagascar 5. Without the support of box office king Seth Rogen, I can’t see how the movie could have squeaked by with an R-rating, with its graphic scenes of thrust and awe that are just a shade bluer than your average late-night Cinemax offering. Taking a love interest to see it is just about tantamount to Travis Bickle’s idea of a first date.
In Smith’s latest foray into the dirty minds of romantics, Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play lifelong friends and roommates who share a rapport that, in movie terms at least, can be immediately recognized as platonic (I can’t image Spencer Tracy’s first lines to Katherine Hepburn in a movie being, “I told you to close the door when you’re taking a shit!” but that is exactly how the audience is introduced to the chummy friendship between Zack and Miri) After a high school reunion that brings their monetary woes into sharp focus, Miri wistfully observes that “These are the type of circumstances that drive people to do pornography,” a prospect that, to Zack, seems less like a death knell than a lofty achievement to work toward. Before long, Zack and Miri are holding auditions, rounding up props, and brainstorming titles for their home-made porno that include “Fuckback Mountain” and “Star Whores.”
Despite the blunt puerility of their porn title ideas, the scenes where the characters prepare for or perform sexual acts on camera are in fact a breeding ground for the film’s funniest moments, as Smith celebrates the same exuberant do-it-yourself spirit seen in last year’s excellent Be Kind Rewind, particularly during a “Star Whores” costume montage that is as hilariously nerdy as it is salacious. It’s unfortunate then that Smith continues to lose his edge as both a writer of characters and a purveyor of jokes that reach beyond the realm of hand-jobs and Han Solo for inspiration. For example, Craig Robinson is wasted in a role that’s memorable only because the actor dead-pans his way through lines that sound as if they were written for a “token black guy” in a Michael Bay movie (perhaps Robinson attempted to bring some irony to a character that offered little more than painfully simplistic racial humor).
Even worse is Robinson’s wife, a role that works under the conceit that shrill black women screaming at their husbands are an inherently hilarious stereotype worth wasting a ten minute stretch of terrible jokes on. And despite the indomitable charms and effortless chemistry effused by Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, Zack and Miri’s relationship arc rings predictable and stale, as Smith once again fails to approach the romantic elements of his films with the same vibrancy and originality he brings to his sex jokes. The most striking revelation here is actually Jason Mewes who effectively shatters the “Jay” identity he cultivated in earlier Smith flicks to play a reserved amateur porn-star whose mid-coital musings elicit the movie's biggest laughs.
The film loses much of its steam near the 90-minute mark when the principals abandon their pornographic endeavors due to the inevitable awkwardness that ensues when Zack and Miri finally share their big moment on camera. At this point, the movie hits a deeply saccharine note that is both incongruous to the flighty tone of the rest of the film and unjustified by Smith’s simplistic treatment of his lead characters. Although the director raises some interesting questions about the strange brew formed when sex and friendship are mixed, he rushes Zack and Miri through a third act plot-line involving faux betrayals and misunderstandings that would be better suited for shallow romantic comedy archetypes, not the real, relatable characters his protagonists potentially could have become at the mercy of a smarter script.
Nevertheless, it’s hard not to root for Rogen and Banks, who elevate the material with their winsome comic personas. And while Zack and Miri isn’t quite deep enough to warrant the gravitas Smith forces upon his characters, the film showcases the talents of not only trusted performers like Rogen and Banks, but also old Kevin Smith mainstays like Mewes and Jeff Anderson. And besides, what better antidote is there to a case of wintry economic blues than a hearty dose of good clean porn?
C+
In Smith’s latest foray into the dirty minds of romantics, Rogen and Elizabeth Banks play lifelong friends and roommates who share a rapport that, in movie terms at least, can be immediately recognized as platonic (I can’t image Spencer Tracy’s first lines to Katherine Hepburn in a movie being, “I told you to close the door when you’re taking a shit!” but that is exactly how the audience is introduced to the chummy friendship between Zack and Miri) After a high school reunion that brings their monetary woes into sharp focus, Miri wistfully observes that “These are the type of circumstances that drive people to do pornography,” a prospect that, to Zack, seems less like a death knell than a lofty achievement to work toward. Before long, Zack and Miri are holding auditions, rounding up props, and brainstorming titles for their home-made porno that include “Fuckback Mountain” and “Star Whores.”
Despite the blunt puerility of their porn title ideas, the scenes where the characters prepare for or perform sexual acts on camera are in fact a breeding ground for the film’s funniest moments, as Smith celebrates the same exuberant do-it-yourself spirit seen in last year’s excellent Be Kind Rewind, particularly during a “Star Whores” costume montage that is as hilariously nerdy as it is salacious. It’s unfortunate then that Smith continues to lose his edge as both a writer of characters and a purveyor of jokes that reach beyond the realm of hand-jobs and Han Solo for inspiration. For example, Craig Robinson is wasted in a role that’s memorable only because the actor dead-pans his way through lines that sound as if they were written for a “token black guy” in a Michael Bay movie (perhaps Robinson attempted to bring some irony to a character that offered little more than painfully simplistic racial humor).
Even worse is Robinson’s wife, a role that works under the conceit that shrill black women screaming at their husbands are an inherently hilarious stereotype worth wasting a ten minute stretch of terrible jokes on. And despite the indomitable charms and effortless chemistry effused by Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, Zack and Miri’s relationship arc rings predictable and stale, as Smith once again fails to approach the romantic elements of his films with the same vibrancy and originality he brings to his sex jokes. The most striking revelation here is actually Jason Mewes who effectively shatters the “Jay” identity he cultivated in earlier Smith flicks to play a reserved amateur porn-star whose mid-coital musings elicit the movie's biggest laughs.
The film loses much of its steam near the 90-minute mark when the principals abandon their pornographic endeavors due to the inevitable awkwardness that ensues when Zack and Miri finally share their big moment on camera. At this point, the movie hits a deeply saccharine note that is both incongruous to the flighty tone of the rest of the film and unjustified by Smith’s simplistic treatment of his lead characters. Although the director raises some interesting questions about the strange brew formed when sex and friendship are mixed, he rushes Zack and Miri through a third act plot-line involving faux betrayals and misunderstandings that would be better suited for shallow romantic comedy archetypes, not the real, relatable characters his protagonists potentially could have become at the mercy of a smarter script.
Nevertheless, it’s hard not to root for Rogen and Banks, who elevate the material with their winsome comic personas. And while Zack and Miri isn’t quite deep enough to warrant the gravitas Smith forces upon his characters, the film showcases the talents of not only trusted performers like Rogen and Banks, but also old Kevin Smith mainstays like Mewes and Jeff Anderson. And besides, what better antidote is there to a case of wintry economic blues than a hearty dose of good clean porn?
C+
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