4K-UHD/Movie Review: Dogma

 

Dogma is the 1999 film written and directed by Kevin Smith. It was the fourth film in what is known as the View Askewinverse, which is the series of comedies written and directed by Smith, which at the time, included the films Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy. It stars Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Salma Hayek, Jason Lee, Alan Rickman, and Chris Rock, as well as Smith and Jason Mewes as the characters Jay and Silent Bob. George Carlin and Alanis Morissette also have what amounts to extended cameos. Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson (who were the leads in Clerks) made cameo appearances, and Janeane Garofalo and Bud Cort have small roles. In the film, Affleck and Damon play fallen angels named Bartleby and Loki, who attempt to exploit a loophole in their banishment to Earth and re-enter Heaven, which, if successful, will wipe out everything in existence. Fiorentino plays Bethany, a counselor at an abortion clinic who is undergoing a crisis of faith and is recruited by the angel Metatron (played by Rickman) to stop them. She is aided by Jay and Silent Bob, as well as Rock's character Rufus, and Hayek's character Serendipity, while Lee's character, the demon Azrael, tries to stop her. 

The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a standard blu-ray disc. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is very good. It is definitely an upgrade over the initial DVD release, and a good, but not outstanding upgrade over the blu-ray (which had been out of print for many years). The UHD disc includes the two original commentary tracks, one with Smith, Affleck, Lee, Mewes, producer Scott Moser, and Vincent Pereira, which focuses on the movie itself, and the second is a technical commentary track with Smith, Moser, and Pereira in which they discuss more of the details about filming and getting the movie made. New features include a short introduction by Smith for the 4k release that plays after the disc loads, a new making-of documentary that runs almost an hour and a half that features updated interviews, a portion of a Q&A session with Smith after a screening of the film, an interview with Smith that runs about 15 minutes, the original trailer and a 25th anniversary trailer, and a few shorter featurettes. 

The standard blu-ray contains the films and both commentary tracks (although the track with Smith and the cast includes video pop-ups that are not in the version on the UHD disc), the intro by Smith, and all the legacy content carried over from the original release. Those include about an hour and a half of deleted and extended scenes, a 40-minute documentary focusing on the very stupid controversy surrounding the film when it was made, some storyboard sequences, more trailers and TV spots, among other things. As with the original release, most references to Miramax and Harvey Weinstein are censored from the extras (with only a couple of exceptions).

The film is good, but it will definitely not appeal to everyone. First and foremost, it is a crude comedy with crude humor (as is the case with most of Smith's movies). It happens to involve religion, unlike what some think, it does not make fun of religion or faith in general. It is a comedy that is set around religious concepts, some controversial and some not. Smith, who was a practicing Catholic for years, wanted to make a comedy that explored the religious dogma he learned growing up. He does poke fun at the Catholic Church, but not the concept of faith in general. Ultimately, if you do not mind crude humor and swearing, it is a good movie that actually teaches some aspects of Christianity and Catholicism, which some people may not otherwise know. If you can accept that, the movie is absolutely worth watching.