Talk about tease. Promising a flick that thinks with its dick, Zack And Miri is instead Kevin Smith’s most romantic film since Chasing Amy. True, it’s cheaply shot and many jokes feel recycled – Star Wars smut and comedy porn titles that could be leftovers from Clerks.
Luckily, Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks know how to hit the gooey spot, pumping genuine affection into the implausible story of long-time roommates turning to grot to pay the bills.
Written for Rogen, the boy-girl stuff is as predictable as any porno, as Zack and Miri slowly realise what you’ll twig early on at their mortifying high-school reunion. “It’s dirty, but also really sweet,” Smith says during talking-head doc Popcorn Porn. And it’s the sweetness that makes it… Although the dirty’s pretty memorable too: Traci Lords blowing bubbles from her nethers; Jason Mewes letting loose ‘little Jay’ and Justin Long going hysterically husky-gay for Superman Brandon Routh.
Disappointingly, renowned gabber Smith doesn’t contribute a chat-track. Instead, the flaccid package is padded with webisode chats between Banks and Rogen and a Making Of that’s literally full of shit: over 25 minutes focus on a) the manufacture of a bespoke ‘poo cannon’ and b) Smith’s fight to retain his faecal/facial centrepiece (a gag in every sense – brace yourself, they play it over and over and over). In other words, not a disc that comes up smelling of roses.
Richard Matthews
DVD Extras:
- Making Of
- Interviews
- Webisode
