Good and bad news for fans of director Kevin Smith: he’s got a couple of projects in the works. If you’re a fan of Smith’s, this should be good news, so what’s the bad? Smith is going in a different direction than what we’ve all grown used to.

When Kevin Smith released Jersey Girl in 2004, he veered drastically from the type of films that had given him a name in film-making. From movies that centered their comedic value around sarcasm, crassness, and marijuana, Smith went to the opposite extreme, giving audiences sweet, yet fairly drab, family comedy. His subsequent films, Clerks II and Zack and Miri Make a Porno, while not quite the caliber of his first films, seemed like Smith was making a return to his former style. But alas, it was not to be.

Instead, Smith is working on a buddy cop flick, A Couple of Dicks, and Hit Somebody, about a guy trying to fulfill his dream as a professional hockey player through brute force. Smith has also finally gotten the funding to go ahead with Red State, a horror film he’s been discussing for the last 2 years. All told, this is definitely not the type of content we’d expect from Smith, who admits the films don’t fall into his usual m.o.

Time will tell if Kevin Smith can successfully make the transition to a different style, but one things for certain: good-bye to Jay and Silent Bob.

Someone once told me it’s impossible for men and women to be friends. It just is. There’s always the inherent possibility of sex happening somewhere down the line, I guess, so every male/female friendship isn’t really friendship, it’s just a booty call that hasn’t been dialed yet.

Zack and Miri (short for Miriam, natch) are male and female lifelong friends who, even by living together and sharing expenses, struggle to get by. Neither has a meaningful arelationship, career aspirations, or financial independence. Their easy solution: go to their high school reunion, where Miri can hook up with rich Bobby Long (played by Christopher Reeve-lookalike Brandon Routh), who can help pay off her debts. As Miri hits on him (and rather pathetically), Zack meets Bobby’s, um, boyfriend, played by a throaty-sounding Justin Long. Zack introduces Miri to the boyfriend, who, of course, is crushed. Bobby’s fortune is actually the result of his work in gay porn films, which he’d managed to keep secret until his boyfriend causes a scene during the reunion.

When Zack and Miri return home, they find out that their overdue bills have finally caught up with them – the power is turned off, and the water is shut off. As they sit in a bar to enjoy the complimentary electricity, they wonder what they can do for money…

… and Zack, of course, suggests making a porno.

And of course, the name of the film gives the plot development away, and the duo begin putting together a film. They find a financial backer (Zack’s friend and co-worker who was saving for a giant TV), a set, costumes, and they even cast actual actors to appear in the film. Their idea? Star Whores: a pornographic re-imagining of the film Star Wars. Original, right?

Of course, what happens from there is the real meat of the film (wow, no pun intended, seriously), and it centers around the possibility of feelings between Zack and Miri. The problem, though, is that at times, the film does a really great job of creating actual chemistry between the leads, and with the rest of the cast. Yes, that’s a problem. If it was a simple horny comedy that didn’t rely on empathy, we’d have a simple series of gags and body parts, and we’d be set. But, when this film relies on said empathy creation to carry it – it works. It’s just that the film can’t decide if it wants to be the surprisingly touching film that happens to be about making a porno, or if it wants to be the simple horny comedy that has a weak subplot about unrealized love. There are just too many scenes that really feel like the actors are reading their lines robotically from cue cards. It’s fascinating – the scenes that come off flat and fail to generate emotion happen in one scene, and as we transition to another setting, then they somehow remembered how to act. It creates such an unbalanced, uneven feel, that it’s hard to connect with the film, and it gets a little frustrating. This is really obvious at the end, with tacked on speeches about true love and all that jazz, and it just flops. I feel like I have to blame this entirely on director Kevin Smith, because I know he can do better.

It’s not a terrible film, not by any means. I did genuinely enjoy it. But it just has too many holes (NOT A PUN), and too many failings to be anything memorable. Whenever it does something right, and manages to seem clever, it immediately defeats itself with a horrible one-liner or bad acting.

Lightly recommended for Smith or Rogen fans.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Thanks to those hooked up folks over at MySpace for releasing a very tame version of the redband trailer for the upcoming Kevin Smith film Zack and Miri make a Porno. From the early reviews of the film, one from us, the show is a must see, laugh out loud comedy. Of couse full of all kinds of sexual inuendoes.

This film has garnered a pretty big following already due to the media stink it has created in its advertising. Some states are not allowing the advertising with the word “Porno” in it. Of course I hope you checked out our Halloween Costumes of Zack and Miri here.

Zack and Miri make a Porno debuts in theaters October 31st. Check back here for the review early Friday morning, or if you will forget – sign up for our newsfeed up in the upper corner of the site.