Zack and Miri

It’s conventional in pretty much every way, except that this Kevin Smith film also has porn in it, so it’ll probably bring in a few more guys.  Smith wrote and directed Zack and Miri, and I think the only thing he wanted to do was make people laugh.  I don’t think he’s actually trying to say anything with this one, or if he is, I completely missed it (maybe, porn stars are people, too…I don’t know).

Here’s Seth Rogen again in that same role he’s been playing for awhile now, and Elizabeth Banks plays a similar role, only female.  That’s just about the only difference in the two until about three-fourths of the way through the movie, when, having reached dire straits, they are making a porn flick to make ends meet, they discover they have more feelings for each other than they thought previously.  This is when we the audience find out what the movie has to be about.  It can’t really be about making a porno, so the title must belie its true intentions.  It’s really a romantic comedy.  Now, it isn’t the kind of romantic comedy you’ve probably ever seen before, because the language is going to be, to many people, repulsive, with just about every word used for the female genitalia possible, for one thing.  However, it is still a romantic comedy.  And like all romantic comedies, the ending is a foregone conclusion, so it’s not really the ending you’re going to see, but how we get to the ending, and that’s why we keep watching this one.  Well, that…and the laughs…and the porn.

There are plenty of laughs here, a handful of endearing moments, and lots of boobies.  This film is pretty much just those three things.  It has at least one good supporting cast member (Craig Robinson from The Office, who also joined Rogen in Pineapple Express), which is really enough, considering it only needs a sprinkling of good acting to juxtapose with the boobs.  That being said though, I honestly expected even more nudity.  With “porno” in the title, I expected it to be overflowing with it, but it really wasn’t.  Of course, there is a ton of nudity, but there isn’t so much that the movie becomes about the nudity entirely, or at least I didn’t think so.  So, it actually may leave some concupiscent males wanting more.  But then there’s the internet for all that.

There were times in this movie I couldn’t stop laughing, like when Zack and Miri spend a good five minute montage trying to come up with the name for their porno, with such classic titles as won’t be mentioned here.  But some of them are hilarious.  Besides that and a few endearing situations between the title characters, it isn’t a very good movie.  It’s fun sometimes, crude most of the time, and naked a little bit too, but this movie is really a renter if I’ve ever seen one, and it may not even be that.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars