Review By Brad Plevyak

The Intro: Dogma. You've heard the title whispered around the net and especially this site. You MAY have even (shame on you) read the script. You've seen the cast list, and been impressed and intrigued. You know the director (Kevin Smith) and love his past work. You know it's supposed to cause a stir amongst organized religion. But what's behind all the hype, the secrecy, and the controversy? Let's dive in by slicing some of the major elements of the flick into pieces for analysis:

The Cast: The cast is superb all around. Though Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) is the film's "main" character, the script allows the entire cast to share screentime quite nicely with each other. As the film progresses through its various segments. In fact, there ARE no minor characters in this film. You'll get to know them all, and EVERYONE plays a critical role as they're weaved together into the intricate storyline.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon completely take their onscreen chemistry in a TOTALLY different direction as fallen angels Bartleby and Loki. Alan Rickman brings a humorous, sarcastic life to Metatron that has to be seen to be appreciated. Any Monty Python fan would be proud. The beautiful Salma Hayek seems perfectly cast in her role of Serendipity, and George Carlin is better than ever...Again, an outstanding casting choice. Chris Rock drops in just in time to share some memorable dialogue with Jay & Bob.

Finally, speaking of the duo, Jay & Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) give their largest, best, and most memorable performace (so far!). Affleck, Damon, Lee, and Rickman all take on roles unlike anything we've ever seen them perform before. The remaining cast members play the more standard part that you'd expect; not that this is a bad thing, it's just a good way to get the point across, we think. And hell, it doesn't hurt to see our silly selves walking through the scene early on in the film.

The Style: Like "Chasing Amy", Dogma represents a departure from Smith's past work, allowing him to expand onto bigger and better things (action, more camera movement, and special effects? You bet!), while maintaining that brilliant, insightful dialogue that makes his films so memorable. Speaking of dialogue, the film's long running time has been brought up on many occasions; the cut we saw ran over 3 hours in total. The fact is, while Dogma contains a great deal of action, plenty of time is allowed for the many characters to talk, joke, tell stories, and the like. Whether all of this is essential or not seems to be the question. We say YES. Which leads us to...

The Length: This seemed to be the major problem of many of the test screeners. The version WE saw was even longer than the version screened last night. The new snipped running time clocks in at 2:30. Kevin cut lines of dialogue here and there, little by little, to get down to this time without sacrificing important scenes or plot points). Honestly, we can't imagine it going any less. There's a lot going on, and plenty of characters to keep track of. Part of the feel of the film is the involvment of ALL the players in the plot. To accomplish this without feeling rushed through it all, you gotta take the time. Dogma follows about 3 times the amount of characters as MOST other flicks. When you think of it in those terms, the 2:30 seems to make more sense. Still, we're confident that Kev & Scott can trim some more bits here and there to help the pacing even more. In short, if you're a Smith fan, you wouldn't want ANYTHING cut out, but for mass consumption, the flick could probably stand for a little trimming. It'll ALL be back on DVD though.

The Music: The version we saw was fully temp-tracked. Kevin told us that very little of the stuff we'd heard would actually be in the final flick, though we hope the "classic" tune that blasts during the strip club scene can stay intact. It'd make for a great soundtrack piece. Shame about the original composer being lost due to a conflict. We hope the replacement will be as good. The flick was great WITHOUT music, so we can only imagine what the right stuff in the right place will do to enhance the experience.

The FX: All the makeup effects were in place in the cut that we saw. We're not sure if they will be touched up at all, though if this is possible we believe that they might be. Kevin pointed out all the places where digital effects would appear, so we had an idea, but none were even started at that time. Studio X (The Titanic guys) should have no problem getting what they want into the flick though, especially with the generous timeframe.

In parting...What's Dogma like? Well, first, it's FUNNY. VERY funny. This film contains some of the biggest laughs that we can ever recall (A diner scene between Jay, Silent Bob, & Bethany even outdoes the classic Chasing Amy/Silent Bob diatribe). We found ourselves laughing so hard that we had to do our best to make ourselves stop so we can hear the subsequent dialogue. Dogma also has the bravery to mix the humor with moments of great drama (a very memorable scene a bit over halfway into the film between Loki and Bartleby in a parking garage comes to mind). We hope that the test screening audience was a good, fair one, and that Dogma will remain the unique, entertaining, and epic picture that we saw a few short months ago. Any way you slice it, you're in for a real treat this fall. Expect a film like you've never seen before.