'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' review

Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks (Credit: Darren Michaels/Weinstein Co.)

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Devoid of water, electricity and money, longtime platonic best friends Zack (Seth Rogen, perfect) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks, ditto) decide their only way out is to make an adult movie. With help from Zack’s coffee shop co-worker (Craig Robinson of “The Office”), a stripper (actual porn star Katie Morgan), a total sleaze (Jason Mewes) and an unusually talented woman known only as Bubbles (Traci Lords), Zack and Miri get to work...only to discover sex could change their relationship forever.

The buzz: Not only does writer-director Kevin Smith step out of his New Jersey comfort zone (into Pittsburgh, what a journey!), he employs several actors (Rogen, Banks, Robinson, Gerry Bednob) who typically pop up in Judd Apatow movies. If not for the extra-raunchy setup, the constantly dirty dialogue and the presence of Smith alums like Mewes and Jeff Anderson (“Clerks”), you might think this were an Apatow-style romantic comedy.

The verdict: There’s good nasty and bad/unfunny nasty, and “Zack and Miri” has plenty of both. There are lots of laughs—particularly in Zack and Miri’s initially hysterical and then remarkably sincere sex scene—but too many childish gross-out gags, not to mention embarrassing editing and a terrible, unnecessary end credits sequence. Smith’s envelope-pushing dialogue aspires to depict what love and sex is really like in 2008, but his weaknesses as a writer sink the story into a boring, conventional path that isn’t remotely modern. Like a porn star or a filmmaker aiming for more than just a few big chuckles, Smith needs to focus not only on what he does best but on how to improve his weaknesses.

Did you know? Zack claims that he could be like a masturbatory MacGyver by using nothing but two Popsicle sticks and a rubber band to pleasure himself. What, too much information?

Video: Watch the review of 'Zack and Miri'

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