Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Smith gives the appearance of wanting to provoke, but along with his smuttiness, he wears his heart on his sleeve.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Zack and Miri has a bright, chipper look to it, thanks to cinematographer Dave Klein, a frequent Smith colleague. Wintertime in Pittsburgh never looked so good.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks make a lovable couple; she's pretty and goes one-for-one on the bleep language, and Rogen, how can I say this, is growing on me, the big lug.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Naughty and nice is a killer-hard combo to pull off. Stick with Rogen and Banks. They rock it.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

For two-thirds of its running length, Zack and Miri is vintage Smith - profane humor that knows no boundaries and obeys no rules. What's most amazing about Smith's barrage of hard-R jokes isn't the range of subjects he covers, but how few of them "miss."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The film is clumsily unfunny at times--particularly when Smith makes tone-deaf efforts at gay-and black-themed comedy--and it's occasionally gross just for the sake of being gross.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

Along with the awkward romantic exchanges that always seem to find their way into Smith's movies, there's also a sweetness that you don't often see in films that average multiple f-words per minute.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

As in many of Smith's earlier movies, the moments of ostensibly genuine emotion aren't nearly as convincing as the moments of juvenile obscenity and quasi-homophobia.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The funniest movie of Smith's I've seen. It's "When Harry Did Sally."

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Smith's funniest, sharpest and most polished movie to date. It also is his most mature and emotionally engaging picture, even if it happens to contain one of the grossest sight gags I've ever encountered in a mainstream Hollywood film.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

The mainstream acceptance of porn has also disarmed Smith's formerly outrageous humor, though there's a warm "Boogie Nights"-style vibe to the little family of oddballs Zack and Miri recruit to help them.

Variety Todd McCarthy

It would be too much to say that what Smith has come up with here is inspired, but it is pretty funny and very energetic.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Zack and Miri is funny, and Rogen is a natural as Smith's alter-ego, spewing profane dialogue like he was born to it.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Rudely silly rather than transgressively shocking, Zack and Miri is the sort of bawdy but fundamentally decent farce you could take Grandma to, provided Grandma were familiar with the oeuvre of Traci Lords.

TV Guide Perry Seibert

Zack & Miri stand out as Kevin Smith's most thoroughly representative film -- both for better and for worse.

Empire Simon Crook

Crude, hilarious, if a little corny, Smith's latest hardcore comedy is right on the money shot.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Despite shortcomings and implausibility linked to their roles as written, Rogen and Banks come off with surprising charm and grace.

Time Richard Corliss

Romantic comedies often make do on flimsy premises, but this one is thinner than Kate Moss and nuttier than an Almond Joy.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The movie's front-loaded with puerile, junior high humor (and, admittedly, several laugh out loud moments), which is fine, but all this still followed by an increasingly awkward and clichéd third act.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

The biggest titters at a recent preview screening came during a scene in which Mewes shows off his dick--as though, at last! Still, how Jason Segal of him. Does Apatow always get there first?

Slate Dana Stevens

This movie could have been an effervescent neo-screwball romance, "Bringing Up Baby" with nut-sack jokes. So there's no blaming the subject matter for the fact that Zack and Miri feels so dispiritingly graceless.

Washington Post Neely Tucker

This was originally rated NC-17, and somehow, I'm thinking that version will survive on DVD.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Longs to be a smutty film with a heart of gold. Instead, it's a funny concept whose execution does not live up to its potential.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

By the halfway mark, Rogen's performance, like his voice, is less cuddly than grating, and the carbonated giggle that is Elizabeth Banks grows flat. This one's for the Smith cultists.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

In spite of its sometimes tiresome, sometimes amusing lewdness, follows a gee-whiz romantic-comedy formula that would not be out of place on the Disney Channel.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

The moments when "Z&M" works are, almost without exception, the ones that are more sweet than shocking. All the rest, frankly, feel like Apatow Lite.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Like a lot of things about Zack and Miri, the porn title feels like it's trying too hard.

The New Yorker David Denby

Kevin Smith turns out to be reverent after all: he wants to separate true love from mere copulating for money, but his story mixes romance and porn so inextricably that he seems confused, and the movie trips over its own conceits.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A Smith production is always noisy, shambling, and liberally smutty on the outside while conservatively gooey on the inside.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It's written and directed by Kevin Smith--and hats off to him for being savvy enough to go for a piece of the Apatow action! Too bad he doesn't rise to the occasion.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The jokes are forced, almost mechanical, in their crudeness.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It's really dumb, even though it starts promisingly and continues, in a self-infatuated way, to consider itself quite bright.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Smith appears to have poured his creative energy into the cheerful come-on of the title and left nothing in reserve for the movie. He fails to wring any memorable comedy from shoestring porno filmmakers because his own filmmaking is just as amateurish and slovenly.