'Zack and Miri Make a Porno' is mostly harmless

You surely won't go to hell for seeing "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," but you probably won't die laughing either.

Kevin Smith's movies tend to make more noise than sense. The Catholic church, quite pointlessly, protested "Dogma," which made news, but most of both the faithful and the unfaithful ignored it. "Clerks" caused a buzz but is now forgotten.

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" is a step up for the 38-year-old director-writer because it aspires, at least, to be a mainstream comedy hit in the ilk of Judd Apatow's "Superbad" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." Apatow has struck gold by making R-rated comedies that are softened with a bit of sweetness. This allows critics to praise them and remain respectable at the same time they can claim to be "cool." Apatow has shown that you can get away with just about anything if you add a bit of vulnerability and retribution to the mix.

In these movies, the females are always smarter than the boy-men, tolerating the lads until they can train them to become obedient husbands. Before that, which happens only after the movie ends, the guys love to talk dirty, swig beer and ogle women.

It works.

Add vulnerability, and you can make an R-rated movie that can be accepted by both women and critics. Of course, the guys are no problem. These movies are made for them in the first place.

Following this formula, an R-rated film can get away with what used to be NC-17.

The plot of this mostly harmless little dating movie concerns childhood friends (Zack and Miri) who are living together to pay the rent. (You're supposed to believe that). When the electricity and the water are turned off, they come up with the idea of putting a porno movie on the Internet to make money. (They got the idea because some naughty lads photographed her in her undies, and it became an Internet sensation as "granny panties.")

They hire some inept moviemakers, including a couple of actresses played by former real-life adult film veterans Traci Lords and Katie Morgan, along with some regulars from Smith's other movies. These include Jason Mewes, who used to be the social misfit Jay of the Jay and Silent Bob team. There is full frontal male nudity in a quick walk by, but most of the suggested sex is inept to the point that it doesn't work.

In the end, there is a real question whether Zack and Miri can go through with their big scene because, after all, they've known each other for so many years. It might ruin their friendship. It's almost sweet, but then there is all the silly, tasteless grossness on the sidelines.

There is nothing gross, though, that can't be saved by the charming, delightful presence of Elizabeth Banks in the role of Miri. She looks like she just came from the debutante's ball, but she's spunky enough to hold her own. In other words, she's the girl that half the men, not necessarily the boys, in the audience would like to meet - a "nice" girl who also knows about bad.

As for the leading man, Seth Rogen, well, he's there - and, mercifully, he does not do a nude scene, not really. It is difficult to figure out how Rogen could become a movie star since he is neither a comedian nor an actor. He is, you might say, a "presence" - the doofus who doesn't know better. In any case, we're obviously going to have to put up with him for a long time. He has a half dozen movies in the works, including a new version of "The Green Hornet."

We come away thinking Miri deserves better. Banks, incidentally, is breaking through also. She is on view as Laura Bush in the surprisingly entertaining "W.," and she'll be in next week's comedy "Role Models."

When you really want to get down to measuring the gross quotient, the most tasteless scene (in the, ugh, extreme) involves excretion, not sex.

You've been warned.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com