Zack and Miri Make a Porno

If there’s an unsung ring of Dante’s Inferno reserved for desperately unfunny scatology-based comedy, then surely Zack and Miri Make a Porno must be playing on an endless loop. It’s likely that writer-director Kevin Smith will soon accept his true calling to make straight-to-video National Lampoon films—something in the Puck This series, perhaps. Until then, his battles with the ratings board are the only credibility he has left. In 15 years, Smith’s cinematic style has actually devolved into mere incompetence, and his characters still speak like 11-year-old boys who know all the dirty words but not what they mean. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, as platonic friends who produce a porno to pay the bills, have never been this unlikable.