Childish ‘Dogma’ lacks substance, humor

In theaters

DOGMA

It’s difficult to know why Kevin Smith began his latest foray into suburban absurdity with a disclaimer that asks audiences — and film critics — not to be offended by his film, or to take it seriously.

He’s just having fun, after all, and doesn’t mean to anger anyone — certainly not Catholics, whose religion he crucifies and drags through the mud for 125 never-ending minutes. All in the name of a good time, of course.

Maybe it was the devil that made Smith lose his nerve and add that disclaimer. Or maybe he did it for his mother. But if he did it because of pressure from angry Catholic groups currently denouncing “Dogma” as spurious trash worthy of excommunication, then he’s a fool who has undermined his film and his reputation as a director who once had something to say.

Not that he has anything of interest to say here. One could pray all day for “Dogma,” spritz its script with Holy Water and genuflect to the high heavens before viewing it, and still it would be doggerel, a crude, vacuous, unfunny bit of misogyny that wants audiences to gasp at its naughty ideas, all of which lack substance — and never once shock.

It’s true — if you don’t count how bad “Dogma” is, nothing about it shocks; it is, in fact, a rather a childish, half-hearted attempt to reach out and pull Catholicism’s pigtails, which could have been interesting had Smith only fully understood and explored the hypocrisies he senses within Catholicism and then satirized them with a clear measure of wit.

He doesn’t. His film, which is about two fallen angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) who have found a loophole to get back into heaven, makes the dull, timeworn mistake of mining its humor from the gutter before wrapping it around reams of mind-numbing theology. That’s one of the reasons the film fails so spectacularly — Smith’s dialogue, so sharp in his previous films, is now too dense to pack a punch.

In the end, “Dogma” can best be defined by one of its scenes. When a giant walking pile of feces bubbles up from a toilet and starts killing people in a bar, it’s pretty clear that the film’s director is not only desperate for a laugh, but will do anything to get it. That the audience at my screening was silent throughout that scene — and throughout much of the movie — suggests that Smith should have flushed his script and started anew.

Grade: F

On video

TEA WITH MUSSOLINI

Franco Zeffirelli’s “Tea with Mussolini”is such an affectionate retelling of the great director’s life, it suggests more warmth of memory than real life events.

The film stars Cher, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin and Joan Plowright, five heavy-weight actresses who are so over-the-top, they suggest the Italian director’s life from 1935 to 1945 was rarely with a dull moment.

The film follows these five women from great wealth to even greater financial despair as they gather to raise Luca, a boy born out of wedlock who flourishes under their guidance.

No fool, Zeffirelli conspires to give each actress her moment, the best of which belong to Cher, Plowright and Smith. In this constellation of stars, theirs shine the brightest.

But it’s Cher who is the most unforgettable, Cher who makes you want to see the film again. As Elsa, a flamboyant American Jew who dresses and behaves as extravagantly as, well, Cher, the actress caps a great year with one of her best performances. Believe it.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews are published each Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, each Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”