While Kevin Smith has not quite lost his touch, that touch has certainly become a softer one. Zack and Miri Make a Porno has all the elements of a typical Smith movie: the gross-out bawdy humor, a few nude shots and an array of sex, gay and panty jokes along with the underlying sentimentality and thoughtfulness signature of Smith. While previous films such as Clerks, Dogma, and Chasing Amy, tend to hold back on their message until the end, Zack and Miri is fairly upfront about the importance of love when it comes to sex. It’s not the Smith has gone soft — as this kind of message might appear in one of his earlier films — but the fact that he makes his moral so blatant is atypical for the director.
Following the platonic, lifelong friendship of likeable losers Zack (slack-pack headliner Seth Rogen) and Miri (adorable Elizabeth Banks, best recognized from her time on Scrubs), the movie is one of Smith’s first to take place outside of New Jersey, albeit not too far, as the duo lives near Pittsburgh. Having neither money nor solid, stable futures, Zack and Miri find themselves without power, water and heat just before Thanksgiving with little hope of salvaging their apartment. Following an encounter with Miri’s childhood crush, played by Brandon Routh of Superman’s Return— in a surprisingly likeable and even human role — along with his gay pornstar lover, the recurring “oh you’re that Mac Guy guy!” Justin Long, Zack comes up with a surefire way to make some money fast: make a porno!
Littered with recognizable faces, including The Office’s Craig Robinson and Smith regular Jason Mewes, as well as a few legitimate pornstars, Zack and Miri follows the production of their skin flick with a care and humor perhaps too delicate for Smith’s typical fan base. Many of the jokes seem dated and forced, and while there are a few scenes guaranteed to make the audience react — just wait for Katie Morgan to let lose in a moment of truly Smithian humor — most of the movie falls flat. Both Zack and Miri are engaging and relatable in all their bumbling awkwardness, and their ragtag porn crew is just as goofy and madcap as any supporting Smith cast, but their talents are wasted on a script that just never quite gets it quite right. This is particularly true with the end of the film, which after a long build-up fizzles out without the excitement and resonance one expects from a Smith film. While Rogen is not at his slovenly best, he may be warmer and even more vulnerable here than we have seen him before — which, when matched with Banks’ earnest honesty, hope and self-abashment, makes for one of his most likeable characters to date. Zack and Miri are both incredibly real and though they both prove infuriating in their reluctance to finally admit they are more than platonic, the audience can’t help but want them together.
Sure, Zack and Miri is basically a new, mature take on the let’s-put-on-a-show movies with some sex and nudity thrown in — but it maintains an overall innocence and positive attitude despite the racy topic. As far as movies — especially movies about porn — go, it’s not bad; you just want more from the movie and from Smith. He paved the way for the likes of Judd Apatow and created a film genre for the comic book, science-fiction nerds he lovingly mocks, but perhaps it’s time Kevin Smith either returns to his roots or passes on the lightsaber to another.
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