You have to have some sympathy for the drones of the world. Confronted with the splendiferous goofiness of a property like Kevin Smith's Dogma, what, after all, are they to make of it? Industry reporters look at this two-hour-and-then-some Mulligan's stew of slaphappy road movie, religious fantasia, and potty humor, and start wondering how much of it needs to be cut to meet some cookie-cutter criterion of marketability. Of course, they've actually watched Dogma, which is more than we can say for the legion of knee-jerk zealots who, at the very thought of God and dick jokes cohabiting in the same movie, start hand-lettering signs and writing hate letters to the distributor. Both groups had their way, up to a point: Smith trimmed a little after the film's bow at Cannes, then a bit more in the autumn, and the specter of protest freaked Disney into beseeching/ordering its corporate Mini-Me, Miramax, to drop the picture. Yet Smith's movie remains gloriously overfull of wacky beatitudes and celebratory glee, and Miramax's Weinstein brothers — Lord bless 'em — shepherded it over to another indie distributor, Lions Gate.

Dogma is one of those special movies whose freshness and vitality are so bounteously infectious, your humble reviewer wishes everyone had the pleasure of discovering it brand-new and undescribed. There are these two fallen angels, Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Ben Affleck), whose career following Heavenly banishment has consisted mostly of making mischief in places like airport lounges and shopping malls. They seem like happy-go-lucky guys, but they fervently crave to get back home, and think they've found a loophole in the logic of the universe that will let them through. Trouble is, such a loophole would call God's absolute perfection into question and consequently undo the whole of human history, existence, you name it, in one fell swoop. Sometime next week, in fact. Only a lonely, middle-aged, lapsed Catholic of an abortion-clinic worker named Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) can avert this cosmic undoing — with, perhaps, a little help from God's mellifluous mouthpiece (Alan Rickman), a world-weary Muse turned stripper (Salma Hayek), a trash-talking black hipster who claims to have been the 13th Apostle (Chris Rock), and two earthly, ahem, prophets. Yep, Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith), the irrepressible geek chorus of Smith's Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy.

That Dogma is uproariously hilarious should come as no surprise; Smith is one of the funniest and sharpest writers working in films today, bestriding the realms of eternal high school humor and philosophical seriousness like a slacker colossus. The exhilarating news is that the movie is also deeply sweet-natured and fervently religious — a more passionate, complex, and brave expression of faith than its benighted protesters could dream of. Kierkegaard called it a long time ago: There's Christianity and there's Christendom, and while the storm troopers of the latter can be relied upon to resist like hell, Dogma fights the good fight, sings the Lord's praises, and finds joy in the unlikeliest of places. Red Bank, N.J., for instance.

--Richard T. Jameson

Rated R for strong language including sex-related dialogue, violence, crude humor, and some drug content.