Originally written July 10, 2009

Dogma is the fourth movie created by Kevin Smith, maker of the “New Jersey” movies. Although never a direct sequel, Dogma lies in the same universe as Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy, and there’s references to the three films quite a bit.

Dogma tackles the topic of religion. In the movie, two angels who have been banished from Heaven, Loki (played by Matt Damon) and Bartleby (played by Ben Affleck), manage to find a loophole, and discover a way to get back into Heaven. However, if this happens, then God’s word will have been reversed, and everything in the universe will be destroyed because of this. A woman named Bethany (played by Linda Fiorentino) is called upon to stop these two from re-entering the gates. A regular woman, aided by the help of higher forces such as an unknown apostle named Rufus (played by Chris Rock), a muse named Serendipity (played by Salma Hayek), the voice of God named Metatron (played by Alan Rickman), and even two prophets…none other than Jay (played by Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (played by Kevin Smith)!

The great thing about Dogma is that it’s funny without being offensive. Most of the time, when things try to make fun of religion, they cross the line, most people protest, and it ends up offending people terribly. This isn’t the case with Dogma. Even though it pokes fun at religions a lot, it still does it in a way that surely won’t offend too many people. It maintains humor throughout the whole movie without crossing the line too much.

What makes it enjoyable is all of the normal elements you would come to expect from a Kevin Smith movie. It has some of the best witty dialogue I’ve seen in movies, and it has a great cast to give awesome performances to deliver the funny lines. All around, it just works.

Dogma is a great movie. Not Kevin Smith’s best (although some might think so), but still a damn good movie. I consider pretty much all of his movies must-sees, so it isn’t a surprise that I’m saying this is a good movie.

4/5