I know the legions of Kevin Smith fan's out there, the legions of little-boy men who love the filmmaker's every frame of film, every gleeful reference to "t**ties" and "johnsons", will mark this review as unhelpful on Amazon, in an attempt to bury it. But I hope that you, dear reader, will read on.
Kevin Smith gained attention with the release of "Clerks", his first film, and an extremely low-budget movie he made with a group of friends, shooting in a convenience store they had access to. Since then, he has created a body of work, which is wildly uneven. For every film dealing with more realistic characters ("Chasing Amy") he makes a film filled with sophomoric little boy-men who revel in nothing more than fart jokes, scatological humor and jokes designed only to make high school boys giggle. But he has gained a following and continues to make films.
In "Zack and Miri Make A Porno", he combines elements of both types of films creating a wildly uneven, unsatisfying movie.
Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks, "W", "The 40 Year Old Virgin", the upcoming "Role Models") are lifelong platonic friends and roommates. As Thanksgiving approaches, their money situation reaches a new low when the water and electricity are turned off. But Miri is determined to attend their tenth high school reunion, to prove they are still better than the rest of their class of losers, so she washes the shampoo out of her hair with toilet water and they drive the broken down car they share to the reunion. Her sole reason for attending? To hit on Bobby Long (Brandon Routh, "Superman Returns"), her high school crush, and things don't go as planned. When they return home, Zack gets an idea; they should make a porno. They could sell it to at least a thousand people (the number of people on their high school alumni mailing list, don't ask), make some money and pay their rent and utilities. Miri is skeptical, but the strength of an embarrassing viral video of her makes her realize the idea could work. Plus, she really wants some heat and hot water in her apartment. Zack turns to his co-worker, Delaney (Craig Robinson, TV's "The Office") for backing and the coffee worker agrees after Zack promises him the producer will get to audition all of the girls who will be in the video. Soon, they have a videographer (Jeff Anderson, Randall in "Clerks") and a cast including Traci Lords (a real porn star) and Jason Mewes (Smith's muse who plays "Jay"). Naturally, things get a little complicated for Zack and Miri as the platonic friends begin to realize they may actually have feelings for one another.
Kevin Smith's films usually are one of two things. When the films work, he explores the relationships between a weird and eccentric group of people, delving into their personas and really trying to figure out who these characters are and what they are all about. "Chasing Amy" is a good example of this. But he also makes films that seem to only have been created for the purpose of stringing together a series of zany situations and even more improbable dirty gags and laughs. "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" would be a good example of this. I am definitely more a fan of the former. Although, there are always laughs to be had in Smith's films, when he sets his mind to the more character driven films, he is able to create something more interesting, more memorable and more interesting.
In "Zack and Miri Make A Porno", he seems to be going for a hybrid of the two different styles and it doesn't really work.
For a few minutes, Rogen and Banks are trying to make their characters interesting and believable. They try so hard, you can almost taste the blood, sweat and tears they are trying to imbue their characters with. And we get a sense of their long relationship with one another. And they are an interesting pair. In fact, they are the best things about the film. You probably already guessed I would say that, but it's true. They have a long history together as platonic friends and a long tenure as platonic roommates. There also seems to be ease between them, something that only comes with time.
But as the situation becomes more complicated, they begin to talk. And talk. And talk. I wouldn't mind this so much, but in many of their conversations, I hear Kevin Smith's mind thinking out loud. How can I make this line really clever? And he often simply overwrites the dialogue, which may make him think he is clever. What it doesn't make him, or his characters, is succinct. This overabundance of dialogue also helps to rob the characters of their emotion. Because they are talking so much, trying to be clever, trying to insert little funny comments, or snide comments, we begin to lose a sense of who these people are.
And when the situation becomes more difficult, when they begin to realize their true feelings for one another, the characters work on many levels and don't on as many levels. On the one hand, the situation is so predictable; that we know it was going to happen before it does. On the other hand, when they realize this, the scene is pretty erotic. More on that later.
But Smith seems desperate to try to capture as much of these characters as possible and this means he has to keep them apart as long as possible, giving him the opportunity to include a schmaltzy, poorly written third act when they finally have to put all of the clues together and realize all of the mistakes they made. I guess there is a reason they are so broke and working in dead end jobs. They don't appear to be very smart.
They also don't appear to have ever watched a porno because the production quality of their effort is so bad, it is laughable. But this is the point. And Smith wants us to laugh at the poorly acted sex scenes and the abominable set-ups. Its too bad so much of the regular film could so easily be a porn title, the quality is pretty comparable. The acting seems to have been done with one take, as the actors are practicing their overwritten lines of dialogue.
The rag tag group assembled for the production is meant to be the comic relief. To elicit as many guffaws as possible from the teen-aged man boys in the audience, Smith has created characters that can do strange and unusual things with their anatomy. These are funny for a moment, perhaps more because of the shock value, but after that, we are watching actual porn actors in a feature film try to deliver performances. Something porn actors aren't known for is their acting ability.
In fact, the acting ability of the former porn stars is indicative of the rest of the cast. Jason Mewes walks around as though he is in shell shock, the same blank expression on his face throughout most of the film. Jeff Anderson and Craig Robinson are, at least, game, but when they are only given sophomoric situations and dialogue to repeat (ad nausea in some cases, if Robinson's character said the word "t**ties" one more time, I was going to scream), their performances don't have any where to go and they become as bad as the rest.
Justin Long has an odd, amusing cameo during the high school reunion scene, but his part of the overall story is awkward and not well crafted. Later, Zack and Miri talk about the information he has provided them, leading them to make the decision they make. Two characters talk about what another character said? Why didn't we see this interaction? And Smith misses a real opportunity with Long's character. If I describe the missed opportunity in too much detail, I will spoil the interesting side of this character. Suffice it to say, this character should have appeared later in the film and because he doesn't it shows Smith isn't paying attention.
When Zack and Miri finally have sex, for the porno, the scene is filled with all of the years of their relationship and is actually quite erotic. Which is pretty amazing given how poorly the scene is filmed. Everything is shown from far away which is odd when all of the other sex scenes are filmed as close as possible, showing us as much naked male behind and as much naked female torso as humanly possible in an 'R' rated film. No, for Zack and Miri, they remain almost fully clothed and we see everything from far away. Clearly, this was stipulated in the actor's contracts, but why does Smith include building pillars in shots, and viewfinder frames, and every other distraction. Is he trying to emulate a poorly made porno? If so, mission accomplished Mr. Smith.
After this intimate scene, Smith then tears the characters apart because he has to create a third act to bring them back together, a the third act so contrived, so cobbled from millions of other romantic comedies that it seems completely at odds with the other, more raunchy side of the film. It almost seems like Smith was inspired by his appearance in the romantically schmaltzy "Catch and Release" starring Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant. That film combines your typical romantic dramedy with some off-the-wall characters and more believable romantic developments. It isn't a great film, but it fills the quota of romance any person might want.
Smith isn't a good enough director to juggle the two disparate sides of the film. To make something that works, he needs to stick to one idea, one concept and really go with it. If you want to make a sweet romantic comedy, leave out the potty humor, the sex jokes, the raunch. If you want to make something for your teenage man-boy fan base, leave out the attempts to make something romantic. They just don't mesh.
