"Dogma" was the first film by Kevin Smith that I was introduced to, and it quickly made me a fan of the New Jersey mastermind. The acting was superb, Kevin's writing was creative and hilarious, and the movie made you think. Several points in the movie reinforce Smith's point that this is a movie about the importance of faith.I love how it took story lines from the Bible and made an original plot and comedy with them. It unearthed common questions. Why can't God be a woman? What happens when you cut off an angel's wings? Add alcohol and a sense of irony to an angel and what are you going to get? If there were really muses what productions of this day and age would they be responsible for? Everyone played their roles very well and it made for a really amusing movie. Kevin Smith is a genius. I highly advise this movie to ANYONE.

People always told me I'd like this movie. As an extremely cynical person, they said it would totally work it's way into my mind. But, being so cynical, I doubted that. My main draw was that Alanis Morissette, of whom I'm a huge fan (it's not even funny) plays the Almighty. But I never really took the time to find this movie. So, it found me.

One day as I was looking for something to watch on TV. And sure enough, Dogma was on. I was about a half hour late, but I decided to just watch it. When it was over, I was stunned. I fell in love with the movie right then and there. It was on later that day and I watched it again. I was even more enthralled the second time around. I resolved that I HAD to get this movie. I'll tell you why.

Dogma takes a very interesting look at the world of religion. It gets very sarcastic and critical at times, which drew the ire of many groups over whether or not the movie was appropriate. Obviously they never took the time to see it, because instead of making religion out as evil, the film does everything it can to show the viewer how good religion truly is. Unlike other movies that are like this for the sake of just being controversial and provocative to get attention, this raises many good points about the church and about society in general. Some might call this film blasphemous. I call it genius. An instant classic. I admire the people who came together to make such an amazing thing. The chemistry is perfect, EVERYONE has impeccable acting, and the story is just plain excellent. The writing is first-rate. Even better in fact. I don't want to give away anything, so I'll leave it to you to see it for yourself. I hope you're as wowed as I am. I just bought it today, 3 weeks after first seeing it. I just finished watching it and it seems to get even better with repeated viewing. So even if you hate it at first, you'll learn to love it. I loved it from the get-go.

THis movie is really funny, especially for religious people. Sure, it makes fun of the Catholic Church, and it even suggsts cnspiracy in the church. Alot of it doesn't make any sense, like God is trapped in a body? He's GOD. He can do whatever He wants! Don't get me wrong I did like it! A little out there, but still very funny. Again remember it wasn't suppose to match up with the Bible. Like God is not a woman, God is genderless, and Jesus wasn't black, He was Jewish etc. But you what? It's a Jay and Silent Bob movie, OK? Don't overanalyze it. Good for those ont sensative to the issure of religion.

Even the people who defend Kevin Smith constantly complain about what a horrible director he is. "He can't frame a shot to save his life" and so forth. Like I've always said, you'd think someone who spent his life reading comic books would have a better visual style.

But I can't really see what else Smith does to deserve such a fervent following. Is it 15-year-old stoners cheering the trashing of the Catholic church? This is the type of movie that a video game juvenile junky can watch and think they're experiencing a deep and weighty comedy. Instead, it's just smug and condescending. And not as funny as it thinks it is.

Jay and Silent Bob have overstayed their welcome longer than Anna Nicole Smith. They're not exactly Abbott & Costello. They're not even Pauly Shore & that one Baldwin brother from BIO-DOME.

I can't even get through DOGMA without switching it off: I can only take so much mugging.

"Dogma" is a movie that ought to offend my religious sensibilities, but, oddly, I find it to be a most religious movie. Long on deep theological questions and religious craving, but woefully short on theological sophistication or even basic knowledge, writer/director Kevin Smith has created a smart, hip movie that is emblematic of all that is right and wrong with religion today -- especially Smith's own Roman Catholicism.

Smith has to be commended on the all-star cast he assembled for this flick: Damon, Affleck, Fiorentino, Garafalo, Carlin, Rock, Hayek and Rickman. Each delivers an impassioned and believable performance in his most bizarre of plot lines. The plot? Two renegade angels, banished for millennia from Heaven, have found a loophole back into Paradise. Problem is, if they exercise it, they will have contradicted the infallibility of God, bringing existence itself to an end. God, meanwhile, on one of his monthly skeeballing forays as a human, has been waylaid by a triplet of hockey-stick wielding, hellish thugs, and lies comatose in a New Jersey hospital. Saving the universe is in the hands of an unlikely bunch: an abortion clinic worker, the "13th Apostle," a pair of sex-obsessed, slacker "prophets," a stripper muse and a cynical, angelic mouthpiece of God.

While juvenile in places (the climactic fight sequences seems to have been choreographed by 5th graders) the film is full of the holy longing that many in our time feel is missing from religion. Missing? Not really. Misplaced? Definitely. Disappointed with the spirituality of the Roman Catholic Church, director Smith has gone off into the desert of contemporary society to find the building blocks of a faith he can believe in. That his theology and ecclesiology are way off the road (Christ is not a separate person from God; shooting off angels' wings won't make them human; the pope would never sanction replacing the crucifix) is hardly the point. A longing for authentic religious experience and a desire for communication with a benevolent deity *are.*

For those who see "Dogma" as a mature expression of the state of Christianity today, I say, "Please, take another look." For those on the inside, let "Dogma" be a window into the half-baked beliefs and longings of those who don't come to Church on Sunday. For all, I say, listen long and hard to Alanis Morissette's exquisite and soul-stirring "Still" that plays over the credits at the end. Wow!