“Dogma” attracted a lot of controversy when it was released with people claiming it was anti-Catholic and blasphemous even though its director, Kevin Smith (“Clerks”, “Chasing Amy”), is himself a Catholic. While I’m not Catholic, I am a Christian and I have a lot of respect for the Catholic Church so I certainly don’t feel as though a comedy movie is any threat to my beliefs and to an institution as great as the Catholic Church.

An abortion clinic worker (Linda Fiorentino “Men In Black”) is called upon to save existence itself when two fallen angels (Ben Affleck “Argo”, Matt Damon “The Departed”) plan to exploit a loophole in order to return to Heaven.

Linda Fiorentino does a good job as Bethany. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are surprisingly really funny as the two angels that are intent on re-entering Heaven. As with the majority of Smith’s movies, Jason Mewes and Smith play the Jay and Silent Bob characters and they’re reasonably amusing here. Other cast members include Alan Rickman (“Die Hard”), Salma Hayek (“Desperado”), Chris Rock (“Osmosis Jones”) and George Carlin (“Cars”) and most of them provide fun performances. Some may dislike the fact that God is depicted a woman in this movie but I didn’t really take much of an issue with it because it’s in the context of a zany comedy.

“Dogma” never claimed to be an accurate representation of Christian scripture nor does it ever hint that its theological assertions are anything more than punchlines so I don’t think this movie is particularly offensive. This is a silly and very amusing movie with Smith’s uncompromising dialog that’s full of vulgarity but also littered with some real wit. I thought a lot of “Dogma” was very enjoyable and the big budget craziness made it much more of an interesting watch than Smith’s “Clerks”.