Review By HayMan

I realize I am a few days late here, but here's my Dogma review. I went to the NYC screening (on 3rd and 11th on Wed. the 12th).

Let me start by saying how much I loved Kevin's past work. Clerks was a religious experience when I saw it in the theater. It blew me away. I loved Mallrats from the start. And Chasing Amy was a masterpiece in my opinion. I've read anything I can get my hands on from him and defended him anytime I had to. He's the man.

Then came Dogma.

This is by far my least favorite of the three. Honestly, I was disappointed. It was very funny and had some great performances, but on the whole, I thought it was not very good.

There is a double-edged sword that makes up the main problem of the film. Some things needed more explanations, while the explanations some things get are painful. Let me explain. Having now read an earlier draft of the screenplay after the screening, I know why Alan Rickman's character was spitting out the alcohol, but there was no given reason in the film I saw. Ditto on how a strip club happened to appear seemingly out of nowhere. On the other hand though, the exposition of Jason Lee's diabolical plot at the end was painful to sit through. The dialogue there did not flow naturally, which typically is one of Kevin's strengths.

There was also an uneven mixture of comedy and, well, everything else. All scenes that were pure comedy worked great. Most scenes with drama or action were poor. The ending in particular lacked suspense.

The comedy was great, but some parts of it seemed gratuitous. Why was there the scene in Cardinal Glick's office? Why did Jason Lee have any scenes before the toy store? Why Jenine Garofalo? All these parts were good, but had no point.

And please cut down the number of askew realted in jokes. Brant Hicks and Mike Allerd distracted more than added to the film.

In the script there was much more on Bethany's character's background. Too bad it got cut cause I think it added alot. Also, Hosties was one of the best gags in the script.

Cast wise, a very mixed bag. Matt Damon was far and away the best, controlling the screen whenever he got it. Affleck was fine until he went bad, then he just sucked. The man cannot play a non-arrogant role convincingly. Fiorentino was ok, but her character needed that extra material to be fleshed out. Rickman did a great job with some rough dialogue. Rock was Rock, doing his stand up, funny, but slightly out of place. Salma, great to look at, bad role overacted. Lee had the worst role and no hope of doing anything good in it. Morrissette, a good choice after all. And Jay and Bob, I can't believe I am saying this, but they were far and away the most developed characters in the script. Jay was great. He has grown since Clerks. Great talent there.

The sad thing is I really loved the idea of the film. Underneath these problems lies a great plot, a great message, and some of the best humor. It was the execution that let me down. I had high hopes that Kevin could try something new, but it just didn't fly with me. All his other work was written much better. Still, this just my opinion. There were great moments throughout and it started off top notch. I'll still tell everyone to see it just to decide for themselves and piss off the religious right. It was just sad to be let down by Kevin twice in one week (Mysterio? Please.)