Indie director and slacker king Kevin Smith has made a surprisingly tender film with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, critics say. Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogan star as a pair of "genuinely likable social misfits" whose platonic friendship is put to the test when they decide to make an adult film to pay the bills, Sean Axmaker writes in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
There's no shortage of Smith's trademark gross-out gags and dirty dialogue but an "ultimately PG message about love and meaningful sex" lies at the movie's heart, writes Gary Thompson in the Philadelphia Daily News. "There’s a nifty tightrope walk between raunch and romance," Jim Lane writes in the Sacramento News & Review. "The movie talks and acts dirty, but its heart is actually rather sweet." (More Zack and Miri Make a Porno stories.)