Zack and Miri Make a Porno

How do you write up a movie that's so remarkably meh?

ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO isn't funny, but it isn't bad enough to engender outright hatred. It just sits there, like a joke no one laughs at, but without a follow-up joke to sweep it off the stage.

Kevin Smith's jokes don't sing. His tempo is repetitive. He goes for shocking humor, but his shock humor isn't shocking. As a director, he makes Elizabeth Banks overemote so dramatically that I thought she was going to burst out of her skin nearly every time the camera focussed on her.

But the film isn't hateful. It isn't mean spirited. It's downright sweet, so I can't hate it. It's just there, an amusing premise gone wrong. I wanted to like ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO. I really did. But the film is just plain too much a failure to let me.

Superman Returns

Here's the problem with SUPERMAN RETURNS: Superman has no character arc. He's the same guy at the end of the movie that he was at the beginning, and that lack of an arc leaves a hole where we expect a story.

Sure, SUPERMAN RETURNS has other issues: it feels unoriginal, its lead gives the impresssion of a guy doing a Christover Reeve impression, and we never sense that its protagonist is in any real danger. Those don't break the deal, however. Superman's lack of a journey, and the insignificant journeys of those around him, do. You cannot tell a story without character development and call it a story. You can call it a sketch, you can even call it an experiment, you can even call it late for dinner. But you can't call it a story.

I wanted to like SUPERMAN RETURNS. I really did. But the movie failed to hook or hold me, and I don't intend to see it again. Bummer.