In "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," lifelong friends Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) find themselves on the verge of bankruptcy and can't seem to make the awkward newly adult years work for them. Barely able to keep a roof over their heads, the two find themselves working minimum wage jobs just to cover expenses. Left without any other option, they decide to make, as the title would suggest, a porno. With the help of a strangely assorted cast and crew assembled from the bottom tier of society, the two set to work, finding out along the way that they might have feelings for each other beyond friendship.
The writing is hilarious and guaranteed to make just about any audience member laugh. The movie's funniest moments are when writer/director Kevin Smith mashes two hugely opposite (and seemingly contrasting) ideas together. Take the concept of the movie, for example: a romantic comedy about making porn. Two ideas you never thought you'd see placed together, but there they are, and oddly they work. Using Rogen's charm, Banks's sex appeal and the rest of the cast's overall zaniness, it manages to keep the balance between cheesy romance and laugh out loud bawdiness.
Though the plot is original, it's nothing Smith hasn't done before. Like all of his movies, "Zach and Miri Make a Porno" portrays the good-heartedness of people with filthy mouths and undesirable jobs and showcases life as an optimistic glee fest from even the worst perspectives. It combines elements of all his movies not to do anything new with them, but to speak to those same hopeful sentiments which get a little tiresome.
This kind of cliché is something the viewers of the movie should go in expecting. It's definitely a movie-making formula, but not a bad or annoying one. It's one that has continuously stood the test of time to make people laugh. And though the humor can be lowbrow, its irreverent shock value and gritting charm keeps the viewer thoroughly entertained. It'll make you laugh at the most inappropriate things during the most inappropriate moments, but it's really nothing you didn't see coming.
