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Dogma
EMAILPRINTLions Gate Films Inc.

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 21 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by: Kevin Smith
Directed by: Kevin Smith
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 12, 1999
DVD: May 2, 2000
Running Time: 130 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for strong language including sex-related dialogue, violence, crude humor and some drug content
Starring Ben Affleck, George Carlin, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Salma Hayek, Chris Rock, and Alan Rickman
The latest battle in the eternal war between Good and Evil has come to New Jersey in the late, late 20th Century. In Kevin Smith's comic fantasia Dogma, angels, demons, apostles and prophets (of a sort) walk among the cynics and innocents of America and duke it out for the fate of humankind. (Lions Gate Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Chasing Amy Clerks Clerks II Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Jersey Girl Mallrats
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
It's not every day you get to see a movie that begins in satire and ends in reverence, but then, for Kevin Smith, they may ultimately be the same thing.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The first commandment of Dogma: Thou shalt not stop laughing.
Mr. Showbiz Richard T. Jameson
One of those special movies whose freshness and vitality are so bounteously infectious, your humble reviewer wishes everyone had the pleasure of discovering it brand-new and undescribed.
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
If the film is less than perfect, it is because Smith is too much in love with his dialogue. Smith is a gifted comic writer who loves paradox, rhetoric and unexpected zingers from the blind side.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
A tortured testament from a true believer.
Salon.com Charles Taylor
Kevin Smith's comic-religious fantasy turns out to be the sweetest hot-potato movie imaginable.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
One of the most intelligent, engaging, and gut-bustingly funny revelations to come along in a while.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Mature, thoughtful and occasionally dazzling.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A scathing, scurrilous, sometimes silly but often searching comedy about the nature of faith in the 21st century.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
A raunchy, irreverent, generally hilarious sendup of ritual and papal decree.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
Dogma' is Kevin Smith's fourth film and it looks like his first but I'm not ready to quit him -- there's a landmark in him. I just wish the crafty, raucous Dogma was it.
TNT RoughCut Christopher Brandon
Frequently hilarious, often profound, and occasionally stupid.
Boston Globe Jay Carr
Has that rarest of qualities in movies that think of themselves as religious. I'm talking about the vision thing. And the ability to make morality entertaining.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
Suffused with a sophomoric sensibility that belies its more serious underpinnings.
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
A raucous, profane but surprisingly endearing piece of work.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
Smith makes a big, gutsy leap into questions of faith and religion. He miraculously emerges with his humor intact and his wings unsinged.
Read Full Review >Film.com Ernest Hardy
Smith has crammed the film with enough genuinely funny moments and insightful bits to make it well worth seeing.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
A profession of faith, made with the confident disrespect of a true believer.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
Smith has fashioned a complex, contemporary Bible epic on his own terms. By turns crafty and clunky, pious and profane, it's clearly a labor of love.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
Kevin Smith's attempt to combine sketchy low comedy with long-winded theological speculation results in a mostly unfunny and occasionally tedious mess.
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
It does commit a cardinal sin of filmmaking. It's boring.
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
As funny as a lot of the film is, Dogma remains as frustratingly uneven as the rest of Smith's work.
Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Smith's strongest suit is writing dialogue that slips smart insights in between pop-culture references and raunchy language.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
There is a keen intellect behind this devoutly defiant fable.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Say what you will about (Smith's) sense of humor, genuine faith is rare enough in popular culture to make any sighting worthy of note.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Dotted with real laughs and held together by some solid acting, but it's built of a fairly flaccid narrative and some really amateurish sequences.
Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman
A surprisingly adult exploration of religion refracted, as always, through (Smith's) insistently pop-culture kaleidoscope.
Read Full Review >Newsweek Jeff Giles
As preposterous as the movie gets, it's clearly reveling in its own hokiness.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Smith has badly overextended his modest filmmaking gifts.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Rita Kempley
For a while, the film is screamingly funny, but the further it goes, the more muddled the narrative becomes.
Read Full Review >Film.com John Hartl
(Smith) seems out of his depth in this talky, rambling religious satire.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
A very vulgar pro-faith comedy rather than a sacrilegious goof, Dogma is an extraordinarily uneven film.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
If you're an 11-year-old boy at heart, this is undoubtedly even better than the pile of dinosaur shit in Jurassic Park.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 21 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Riren gave it a9:
A movie about religion that will tick off staunch atheists and zealots? Well hey! It's a mix of blasphemy and profanity that are always measured to be just implausible or irreverent enough to be disarmingly funny. There is substance wedged down inside it: defense of individual faith, the lineage of Christ, the hypocrisy of the confident. Silent Bob is a cute reoccuring character in Smith's movies, but why does the director insert himself into his movie about religion, and play a mute? Yet where other religious movies watch like a thesis, this is more like a conversation with a smart and funny friend. And really, there's nothing so useful in spirituality as that.
Robugly gave it an8:
I just watched that movie and thought it was pretty good.
Karen T. gave it a10:
Dogma surprised me by not being sacriligious; it actually has a respectful love of individual faith, just an appalled disgust for "organized" religion and its hypocritical complexities. Kevin Smith stuffs the script with really funny stuff, charming characters, and thought-provoking situations. In spite of the fact that it feels like it taught me something, Dogma is one of my three favorite movies of all time, the kind I can watch over and over and quote from often. A don't-miss for the faithful and nonreligious alike.
Michael M. gave it an 8:
The third best Kevin Smith film (out of 5). This is a great film. It is so funny, and yet so creative!This is probably one of the best ten or five films of 1999. A large amount of big name actors star in his hilarious, twisted, religous comedy that will have everyone talking and a big cult following! The story is about a woman Bethany (Linda Fiorientino) who is the great great grand niece of Jesus Christ himself. She must stop two bad angels Bartleby (Ben Affleck) and the Angel of Death, Loki (Matt Damon) from re-entering heaven, after being thrown out, by passing through the hall of a church, which we forgive them of all their sins, thus proving god wrong. Since the church is being closed by Cardinal Glick (George Carlin) they must hurry soon. She is helped along the way by two profits, Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith), the 13th Apostle named Rufus (Chris Rock) who was unfortunatley left outside of the bible, a muse named Serendipity (Salma Heyek), and the lead angel and voice of god Metatron (Alan Rickman). Bartleby and Loki are also helped by a mean, funny demon named Azrael (Jason Lee). The movie has some interesting twists and is absolutley hilarious. Jay and Silent Bob have the biggest part they have ever had in any of Kevin Smith's films (besides "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"). The film also co-stars Brian O'Halloran (who played Dante Hicks in Clerks), Jeff Anderson (who played Randal in Clerks), Janeane Garofolo, Bud Cort and Alanis Morissette as God. For anybody looking for a good comedy rent Dogma. (2/20/03)
Katie P gave it a 10:
It was funny and smart. Alanis Morissette playing God was an added bonus. Great movie. Booooong!!!!
St Gilbert Of Mulroneycakes gave it a 9:
Calling all avenging angels, angels, kick-ass angels...You know, we need more films like this one. Films which deal with religion without either belittling it or absolving it of any wrongdoing. And that are funny. And everything. Films, in short, that strike a perfect balance between knob gags and thought-provoking social commentary. Even if the Smith lets his characters go off on one a little too often, the script has wit, intelligence and insight all in one (it's certainly not a "full length comedy script with one liners" - if anything it's a comedy drama. Or even a fantasy comedy drama...only people may kill me for using that word "fantasy" about the Christian faith and that). Our Kev's also got better at the directing lark - he was floundering a little with the huge budget of Mallrats, but here he does brilliantly with both a more complex script and a brilliant cast. And of course, it's both irreverent and very reverent of the Catholic Church - or at least the Catholic faith, the Church has its own problems. Recommended, unless you're one of those gits who complained in the first place about a film being made about Christianity and Catholicism at all...in which case you can just sit there and steam in your own righteousness. Oh, and if you're a Platypus lover, you may not enjoy it so much either. Or if you have a short attention span Everyone else: go watch.
Pat C. gave it a 1:
Shallow. Failed to hold my attention. Religion can be a funny topic, but not as a full-length comedy skit with one-liners. The only profound question here is: What does it say about God that he allowed this project to proceed?
