I have a new Hancock review, and with it a spoiler alert; so if you actually want to see the movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno and don’t want it ruined, then stop reading here.
The movie started much better than expected; Zack and Miri have decided to make a porno, which is no big surprise, but the porno they chose to make (a parody of Star Wars) was quite clever. Unfortunately, a fire shut down production on this potentially classic romp full of awesome innuendo and wickedly funny puns, and they decided to instead make a porno about people working in a coffee shop similar to Star Bucks; there’s really nothing clever or original about that. It’s just people screwing around in a coffee shop, which doesn’t make for great comedy. Having someone drop coffee beans on two people making love is neither sexy, erotic, or funny—it’s just plain dumb…as it a girl pooping on the camera man who is filming an anal sex scene from an angle (yes, this was actually in the movie and it’s as disturbing as it sounds).
The Hancock, however, is not pulled when they decided to do a new film; the Hancock is pulled much later in the film—at the end. I expected Zack and Miri to end up together in the end, and they did, but as soon as they hooked up the director decided to roll the credits and pull a Hancock. There was absolutely no mention of if they actually released the porno. Perhaps there was something at the end of the credits, as is often done in comedies, but I just couldn’t bare to waste anymore time with the film to find out; and for me a movies plot ends when the credits roll—directors who decide to tidy things up in some lame montage as the audience sees the names of stuntmen and assistance to the director are just being sloppy. The point of the movie, at some point, changed from a comedy about making a porno to a comedy about finding your true love—unfortunately the director forgot to explain any of this to the audience through believable scenes.
For as raunchy as Kevin Smith can be at times, he actually has a way of giving meaning to the most bizarre plots and people; this is part of why I wanted to see the movie; you connect with the characters in ways you didn’t know was possible. But in this film he just gives cheap anecdotes and cheap laughs. It’s like Smith set out to prove that making a porno can be romantic and heartwarming (and maybe it can), but he certainly didn’t prove it in this film. The only thing missing was a cameo by Jay and Silent Bob being gang banged for a scene in the never released in porno…but maybe that was in the credits.
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