Herald Rating: * * *
Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek
Director: Kevin Smith
Rating: R16 (violence, sexual references, offensive language)
Running Time: 130 minutes
Opens: Now showing Village, Hoyts cinemas
Review: Russell Baillie
It might appear, with its story of fallen angels, demons and messengers
from heaven, a hangover from last year's batch of pre-millennial armageddon flicks, many of which gave the impression the Vatican was about to open a tie-in Hollywood theme park.
But it's a comedy - "a work of comedic fantasy," it says in its lengthy screen disclaimer - from Smith, the American indie director making an ambitious leap from his smart, funny but vulgar flicks Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy.
Here Smith creates a grand end-of-the-world religious satire which actually ends up - more than two hours later - being oddly faith-affirming. It's also a wordy treatise on the Catholic Church delivered by a weighty cast seemingly operating like a stand-up comedy tag-team. Even the inclusion of Alanis Morissette in a non-speaking cameo as God works neatly.
But for all that, Dogma is confused, an indulgent, overlong motormouth of a film which clanks from Catholic info-download to one-liner and back again. And with seven main characters (as well as Jay and Silent Bob, the stoner duo, a permanent fixture in Smith's films - he plays the latter) it sure is a crowded one.
The setup involves fallen angels Loki (Damon) and Bartleby (Affleck) who have figured out a way to re-enter heaven which will disprove God's infallibility and bring about the end of everything. So it's up to unwitting human hero Bethany (an underused Fiorentino) to stop them and their pre-ascension spree, helped by Jay and Bob, God's right-hand man Metatron (Rickman relishing his role's saintly sarcasm), the forgotten 13th apostle Rufus (stand-up funnyman Rock), and a muse (a decorative Hayek).
Add various obstructive demons - one made entirely of poo in the movie's most awful special-effects moment of many - and you've got quite a mess. But it's hard not to admire the imagination that created it.
