Dogma (1999)

Ugh, you can really tell this was one of my earliest posts.  I didn't know what the hell I was doing.  

A woman's health clinic worker (Linda Fiorentino) is tasked by the Metatron (Alan Rickman) to fulfill a holy mission:  stop two fallen angels, Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartelby (Ben Affleck) from re-entering heaven via a loophole provided by the Catholic Church.  The demon Azrael (Jason Lee) opposes her, but she has help in the form of a muse (Salma Hayek), an apostle (Chris Rock), and two prophets (Jay and Silent Bob).

This has not aged well, as I stated.  It's not as bad as I remember from the second watch, or as good as it was the first watch.  It's a Kevin Smith movie.  That's either make-it or break-it for you.  I do love that it ties in Rosicrucians, gnostics, and apocrypha.  Like a Dan Brown novel with dick jokes.  It is not available for streaming because of some bullshit with the Weinstein Company so physical media is your only option right now.  That's how I saw it in 2010, if I recall.  Netflix is now getting out of the disc business entirely, so look forward to not being able to see stuff like this in the future.  Viva la piracy.  Originally posted 04 Aug 2010.   I was surfing around Netflix right when I had first signed up for it, lining up my queue and what-not, when I ran across Dogma. "Holy shit," I thought, "I haven't seen this movie in forever. Why do I not own this one again?" I remembered that I liked it but I couldn't think of any particulars why. So I tossed it on the list.

I gotta tell ya, this movie was a lot funnier in 1999. And it's not that I don't like Kevin Smith, because I do, I just didn't love this movie any more. I even feel bad for having typed that. It's like having a first crush that you remember so fondly and finding out on Facebook that they've gotten bald and fat. It's terribly disappointing and makes you wonder what you saw in them in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, there are some funny moments in this film and some genuinely touching and thrilling ones. And Alan Rickman, who is always awesome. Yes, even in Love, Actually. He is not on screen nearly as much as I remember, however. Everything just felt kind of flat. I guess because I had seen it before and the elements in it aren't shocking anymore. I've seen Buddy Jesus bobbleheads in minivans.

I remember my friend, Hollana, and her parents boycotting the film when it came out because it was perceived as anti-Catholic. Now, that seems like a silly and quaint notion. Maybe because rationalism is the new name-of-the-game and professing a religion in public is akin to eating with your feet at the Ritz-Carlton. That's not really a judgment; I think things like this are cyclical.

But I digress. I guess if you're really into Jay and Silent Bob, you'll probably own this one already but for everybody else, I'd say rent it.