DOGMA (Q REVIEW ISSUE 160)
4 out of 5

God is a woman. Jesus was black. The local abortion clinic is a really good place to meet loose women. It's controversial, but Kevin Smith's latest movie is the best thing to happen to religion since The Life of Brian

Visit the web site of Dogma, Kevin Smith's epic religious satire, and in amongst the production notes and interviews you will find Hate Mail of the Week. These rants make for a depressing read. There is, for example, much mention of 'blasphemy' and 'boycott' and people 'spinning in their graves'. One writer, however, has been prepared to go just that extra yard. 'Too bad you still cannot comprehend whi (sic) Hitler was necessary' he writes with gnomic evil. Of course, this reaction is as predictable as it is extreme.

Forget your killer dolls, gun-toting vigilantes and gynaecological close-ups - if you really want to get the moral majority on your case then you have to tackle religion. Those protesters weren't picketing life Of Brian or last Temptation of Christ just for the exercise. Moreover, the Pythons went out of their way to satirise not Christ himself but religious mania, while Martin Scorsese's opus was at least a serious piece of work directed by one of the world's most respected filmmakers. Kevin Smith, on the other hand, can lay claim to no such justification. For his fourth film not only tackles pretty much every Catholic sacred cow, but is also the work of a man whose previous outings - Clerks, Mall Rats, Chasing Amy - have featured innumerable gags about farting, dope smoking, oral sex and whether or not Clark Kent would need a kryptonite condom to get down and dirty with lois lane.

In the course of the film we discover that Jesus was black, that Mary wasn't a virgin and that God's mouthpiece - played by Alan Rickrnan - sounds like Frankie Howerd with a cold. When God herself - yes, herself - finally makes an appearance, one of the characters admits that being in her presence has given him an erection. And that's before considering the plot, which finds disgraced angels Bartleby (Affleck) and loki (Damon) discovering a loophole which could end their eternal exile in Wisconsin - a turn of events that would mean the end of existence.

After discovering that God has buggered off, Rickman enlists the help of abortion clinic worker Fiorentino, telling her that she must follow the lead of 'prophets' jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith), a pair of dopers she finds outside her office cruising for loose pro-choice women. Further assistance comes courtesy of thirteenth apostle Rufus (Chris Rock) and creative muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek), the latter claiming to have inspired all the most successful films ever with the exception of Home Alone ('Someone sold their soul to Satan to get the grosses up on that piece of shit.') Together this motley crew must marshal their forces to defeat Affleck, Damon and an array of other foes including a monster made from criminal faeces.

All of which would be a tirade against the institutions of Catholicism were it not for two things. First, being a Catholic himself, Smith is in a perfect position to beat the religious nuts at their own game, trading scripture for script as his characters' critique the church's attitude to everything from the pro-life movement to ethnicity (who is to say that Jesus wasn't black? And what difference would that make?) And secondly, Dogma is one of the funniest movies to be released since, well, life Of Brian.

Smith's direction remains as basic as ever, but the script is his wittiest yet, brilliantly mixing up pop culture with theology. The performances, too, are excellent with even Affleck and Damon redeeming them selves following the decidedly self-fellating Good Will Hunting. Yet, while the zealots will doubtless disagree, the most impressive thing about the film is how uplifting it is. Indeed, there is no doubt that Dogma could prove to be a far more useful recruiting device for Christianity than another series of Songs Of Praise thanks to Smith's central message - the world may be saved through the power of faith, good ideas and a nice hefty golf club.