Cast: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Justin Long

Director: Kevin Smith

Screenplay: Kevin Smith

Running time: 1 hr 41 mins

Genre: Comedy/Romance



CRITIQUE:


With the influx of crude comedies with warm, mushy centres, i.e. the inbred repertoire of Judd Apatow in The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad – that solidified his name as the new king of slacker movies – one-time ruler of this oft-fanaticised domain is Kevin Smith, who had perhaps realised his throne had been robbed, and planned to make When Harry Met Sally in smutty steroids. The title itself is what fanboys wet-dreams are made of, one that surely catalyse a commotion at the board of censors (its first poster had been banned from public, and enforced the makers to design a rather minimalistic but hilarious pencil-drawn cartoons instead). But for all its making, for a film that scream of smuttiness and sexual perversity, it downsizes to just being averagely playful without the amount of skin exposure you’d expect in a common porno movie. It’s not also When Harry Met Sally, missing the intelligence, resulting scatterbrained. Seth Rogen, with his loser charisma, and Elizabeth Banks, with a goofy gameness, are best of friends who live together and are so skint they couldn’t afford to pay their water and electric bills that their last desperate option is to make a home-video porn. The dirty moviemaking rarely takes off, which the supposed comedy should come from, except for a crass scene where actors pretend wooden acting, Banks squealing “Give me your milk!” The trash dialogue potentially ignites, but the potential explosion goes off mutedly. It’s when the film tries to be serious, best friends who happen to be in love together, that it simmers in a muddle of icky goo.


VERDICT:

Stilted fun, if not foul-mouthed jabbering, Kevin Smith should have just made Zack and Miri a film on its own and Make a Porno another. He’ll probably recognise which one could reclaim his comedy mojo.



RATING: C