DOGma, or GODma? (Dogma (DVD))

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Dogma (DVD)
Date:	10/01/01 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, Jay and Silent Bob

Disadvantages: Some people put off by religious aspect?

I've always been a fan of Kevin Smith's movies. Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy were all (in my humble opinion) very clever and funny movies, and they all interlink in some way with common characters and refences to events and characters from other movies, although you don't need to watch any of them to enjoy any other one, they are all standalone movies.

Dogma is a film which has got a lot of people angry because of it's subject matter - God and religion. These people were angry about the way that Smith was treating religion, but I can't personally see why they should get upset. Smith doesn't try and tell people that God doesn't exist, but rather points out that organised religion has a lot to answer for (in this case, he targets Catholicism specifically), but the message is for all religions, and suggests that people have their own take on their own religions.

A basic plotline of Dogma, to whet your appetite, is thus: 2 disgraced angels, Loki and Bartleby (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) have found a loophole (well, been told of a loophole) in the Catholic religion that will allow them to enter heaven again (God kicked them out a long time ago), and this loophole is caused by a ceremony at a catholic cathedral.

God, meanwhile, has gone AWOL (obviously, if God was about, being all powerful, He would be able to kick Angel arse no problem!) so it's up to Bethany (Linda Fiorintino) to save the day. This news is brought to her by metatron (Alan Rickman) who tells her that others will come to help.

The first helpers that come along are Jay and Silent Bob (characters from all previous KS movies), and boy are these guys dumb!

Along the way, they meet up with the 13th Apostle (Chris Rock) who says he was written out of the Bible for being black.

As well as that, they also bump into a Muse called Serendipity (Salma Hayek) and they go off to try and stop Loki and Bartleby from getting back int
o heaven, thus proving God wrong (He said they would never get back into heaven), and as God can never be wrong, if they succeeded, all existance would end.

Well, that's enough plot. I found this to be a very funny movie, and while I'm not very religious , I do agree with Smith that religion is a personal issue.

I like the characters of Jay and Silent Bob - they are very, very stupid, but some of their lines (ans line aimed at them) are very funny indeed. The two central characters of Loki and Bartleby are also well rounded, but I felt that the rest of the characters were quite shallow, especially when you consider that some of them are thousands (Rock), or millions of years old (the Angels, Muse, Metatron etc.)

Anyway, enough nit picking, it is meant to be a comedy after all. If you've seen any other Kevin Smith movies, then this one is a must. Don't be put off by the religious aspect of it- - treat it as an aspect of the plot, because that's all it is.

I know some real strict religious types are going to have a problem about it, but really, if you watched Life of Brian with no guilty thoughts, then this is for you!

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