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The outrageous and often side-splitting catechism contained in Smith's filmic temple of learning is anything but that old time religion. Yet to label this imaginative exercise in hypothetical theology as heresy would be to completely miss the point -- to overlook the zany filmmaker's surprisingly firm commitment to the notion of a deity.
So let's just say the director is exercising free will to conjure a belief system that tickles his fancy more than the orthodox fire and brimstone of his youth. It's God with a sense of humour. Post Hippie, designer label, politically correct Catholicism. And it all stays comically inventive until about the three-quarter mark, when Mr. Smith's outlandish revamping get bogged in more liturgy than Dogma's general level of intelligence can handle. Happily, a fine cast almost always manages to pull the film past its more languid moments.
Playing the wily immortals in question are Ben Affleck as the easygoing Bartleby and Matt Damon as Loki, the former angel of death who nostalgically recalls his legendary reigns of terror. Alas, that was before he fell from grace. But, per the chief wrinkle of Dogma's plot, hope springs eternal, in a matter of speaking.
It all revolves around a planned rededication of a cathedral in Red Bank, New Jersey, by the entrepreneurial Cardinal Glick (George Carlin). Meant to symbolise the Catholic Church's revitalised direction (for one thing, the martyred Jesus is being replaced with an upbeat "Buddy Christ"), the much touted event will set the stage for the aforementioned loophole to be exploited. Bartleby and Loki need only pass under the church arches at the right moment.
Problem is -- now follow this as the premise devilishly turns itself inside out -- if the fallen angels can return to paradise, then it means that the God that banished them in the first place is fallible. What kind of God would that be? Thus it would follow that the whole idea of creation must come undone. Kaput. Finis. In other words, the apocalypse.
Well, the deity isn't very happy with the prospect of that happening. Nope, She (uh huh, She, envisioned with whimsically ethereal presence by Alanis Morissette) doesn't like it a bit. Hence Metatron, the voice of God excellently portrayed by a tartly droll Alan Rickman, is dispatched Earthward to head the scheming seraphim off at the pass. He in turn solicits the service of mere mortal Bethany (Linda Fiorentino), herself a sort of fallen angel.
Divorced and working in an abortion clinic, the pretty gal was rendered barren some years ago by an undiagnosed illness. She has since honed cynicism to a fine art, and is understandably hesitant to take Metatron's assignment. "I think God is dead," opines Bethany. "The sign of a true Catholic," replies Metatron. But wait. The Heaven-sent news is that she is the last descendant of Christ. Gosh. Small world. Anyway, it's just the revelation spiritually starved Bethany needs to finally accept the universe-saving commission. The question is, how will she know what to do?
Have no fear. In the best tradition of motion picture fantasy, two prophets will guide Bethany. And a stranger pair of diviners you have never met. Kevin Smith fans will be gratified. Harking back to the tradition of nitty-gritty losers he so lovingly fashioned in his earlier works (Clerks, Chasing Amy), the Jersey-bred director summons the perpetually propositioning Jay (Jason Mewes) and the stoically enigmatic Silent Bob (Smith again playing his alter ego) to portray the unwitting seers.
Lewd to the point of utter absurdity, Jay's Gatling gun verbalisations of his basest desires play a comical counterpoint to the story's more serious doings. The consummate joint-toking slacker, foul-mouthed Jay assures the film its R-rating. Trying to figure out the deal on Silent Bob, Smith's Jersey shore version of Harpo, is an entertainment unto itself.
Allying with this dubious duo after they save her from a band of hockey stick-wielding ruffians (quite fortuitously, the prophets were just hanging out in front of the abortion clinic, figuring it was a good place to pick up girls), the pilgrimage to save humanity begins. Along the way, they acquire a fourth crusader when Chris Rock as Rufus, the unknown 13th apostle, literally plummets from the sky. Explaining his heretofore-unacknowledged status, exclamatory Rufus informs that being black has kept him from his deserved prominence. Also figuring in the glory brigade is sexy Salma Hayek as Serendipity, a muse now making her living as a go-go girl in a dingy gin mill, and the aforementioned Metatron who pops in and out as the need for divine inspiration dictates.
A nefarious cast of assorted demons and demigods conjoin to see that Bethany and company are unsuccessful in their mission, proving that even in the afterlife you can't get away from office politics. And after much pontificating by all parties concerned and several lightning bolt reminders that special effects have their actual origins in the Bible, everything eventually culminates in a showdown outside the church; humankind's survival hangs in the balance.
Mixing and matching his favourite notions from Western religious philosophy with a dollop of Eastern concepts, Mr. Smith seizes this opportunity to play creator, designing his very own pantheon of deities and ecclesiastical rules the way a child lords it over a shoe box full of toy soldiers. But while thus satirising Catholicism and organised religion in general, yet assuring us that he is quite pious on his own terms, he can't help but divulge his awe of the very doctrines he takes to task. And although the director uses Dogma to assert his iconoclastic reinterpretations, he seems anxious to wow us with the vast amount of knowledge he is hereby rejecting.
The entire exercise is impressive, to a point. The writer-director's comparison of beliefs and ideas (beliefs are rigid; ideas allow for change) is truly inspired. But Smith humorously reminds of the very bright student who tries to vaunt his intelligence by using one too many big words. And though his particular brand of intelligent irreverence is the best to grace the silver screen since the late 1960s, it would be wise to spread the heavier notions across several films. Here, the competing theological theories begin to resemble a football pileup.
Working in realms reminiscent of the offbeat speculations one might otherwise see in a Mel Brooks film or a Monty Python project, Mr. Smith's work is best when it espouses his own trademarked lunacy. And save for the braggadocio religioso, Dogma hilariously keeps the faith.
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