Zack & Miri Make A Porno
- Year:2009
- Rating:R
- Director:Kevin Smith
- Cast:Elizabeth Banks, Jason Mewes, Seth Rogen
- Release Date:February 19, 2009
- Distributor:Roadshow
- Running time:102 minutes
- Film Worth:$8.00
- FILMINK rates movies out of $20 - the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
“…a tumbling waterfall of schmaltz.”
Yes, Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma) has a real knack for dirty dialogue and risque set-ups. What people seemed to have missed in amongst the gags about necrophilia and donkey shows is that Kevin Smith is also one of the sappiest, most sentimental filmmakers in Hollywood. He might have gotten raked over the coals for his more-serious-than-usual flick Jersey Girl (mainly because he had Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in the cast), but that was nothing compared to the vomit inducing Clerks 2, which boasted a finale drenched in more emotive sugar than the average Katherine Heigl film. Get this: Zack And Miri Make A Porno is even worse!
The plot is creakier than a busted bedspring: "best friends" Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are down on their luck and out of cash, so they decide to "put on a show" (in this case, make a porno) to get themselves out of their financial hole. Mmmm...this is a Kevin Smith film...wonder if the cute girl will fall in love with the tubby, decidedly less attractive guy? While the jokes are admittedly very funny, they're constantly offset by a tumbling waterfall of schmaltz. Sure, a gag where a girl shits on a guy's face is pretty wild, but when you back it up with a cheesy, implausible scene where a group of sweet porn stars help pay our titular heroes' rent, it's almost instantly made redundant. On top of this, Smith also steals half his cast (Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson) and most of his sensibility from Judd Apatow, and introduces two gay characters (Justin Long, Brandon Routh) just so he can drop a bunch of disgusting gay jokes. In this gross-out comedy, the full frontal nudity is actually less offensive than the full frontal corniness.
