BY Mike McCarthy

Linda Fiorentino is Bethany, a Catholic who lost her faith when she lost her ability to bear children and subsequently went to work at an abortion clinic to get even with God. Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith are, as always, Jay and Silent Bob, now dubbed prophets, and they're in Wisconsin because of, well, John Hughes movies. Meanwhile, Chris Rock is Rufus, the 13th Apostle, left out of the Bible, he claims, because he's black. And all of the above must join forces to save the world from Loki and Bartleby (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), a pair of angels who weren't allowed back into Heaven after a dispute with God many years ago.

The plot begins to unfold when Cardinal Glick (George Carlin) announces a "Catholicism WOW!" campaign and says it's out with the crucifix and in with "Buddy Christ," a winking Jesus who gives the thumbs-up sign. In an attempt to gain parishioners for his New Jersey church, the cardinal announces a plenary indulgence for anyone who enters the church on the day of its rededication ceremony. In other words, enter the church and you get a clean slate. A clean slate that would allow Loki and Bartleby back into Heaven, thus proving God wrong and reversing everything He -- er, She -- has ever done, ending the world.

So, Bethany, Rufus, Jay and Silent Bob are on a mission from Wisconsin to Jersey to stop Loki and Bartleby from entering this church. Along the way they encounter a demon called Azrael (Jason Lee) and Serendipity (Salma Hayek), inspiration herself (who also happens to be a stripper). Azrael wants Loki and Bartleby to enter that church. Serendipity does not. You can imagine the chaos that ensues in a film with a plot as satirical as this. If not, let me just say that it includes a demon made of shit. Yes, shit. Funny stuff.

I was disappointed when I first heard that writer/director Kevin Smith had cast Fiorentino as Bethany. When I'd read an early draft of the script, I pictured someone younger and spunkier. I'd seen Fiorentino in The Last Seduction, and a few of her other flicks, and she always struck me as being terribly dry. Then I saw her in Matthew Harrison's Kicked in the Head and was impressed. Now I must declare her on a roll, because she impressed me even more in Dogma. Her character is the most grounded in reality, giving her the difficult job of being the one who the audience relates to. And she plays it with heart, bringing warmth to the film in scene after scene. Ironic enough, her refusal to believe the crazy things that are happening during the first half hour is as amusing as what's actually occuring. If she didn't do such a fine job playing it serious, some jokes would have been lost entirely.

I'll give Chris Rock credit for falling from the sky naked, but Jason Mewes and Smith himself deliver the film's most amusing performances, though Jason Lee is almost as funny. However, nobody else comes close to generating the laughs they do. Affleck and Damon have their amusing moments and their performances are great (especially Damon's), but if you're asking me who's the funniest, it's Jay, Silent Bob and the demon Azrael. (Not that anybody gives a bad performance, the acting and the script making it possible to overlook the less than majestic special effects.)

Love it or hate it, I don't think anyone could genuinely claim that Dogma is unoriginal. Even if you could name 50 films that have certain elements of Dogma, you aren't going to find one that's remotely like Dogma in whole. Quite frankly, most filmmakers wouldn't have the nerve to make such a film. And if they did, they wouldn't have the intelligence to make it nearly as witty and interesting as Smith has. I grew up in a Catholic household and went to Catholic High School, but I could not have come up with half of the clever observations about the Bible and Catholicism that he's included. And if I'd tried to write such a script, I'm sure it would have come out bitter and self-serving, but Smith's Dogma isn't that at all. On the contrary, its message seems to be that people need to quit being so uptight about precisely those little things his characters perseverate on. Those little things teenagers harass their catechism teachers about. Smith has recognized how trivial they are and made jokes of them so that others can recognize it, too. The church should be pleased.