Fortunately, Bethany isn't alone in her quest. Joining her are two "prophets," actually stoners Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith himself), who have appeared in all of Smith's films; loud-mouthed Rufus (Chris Rock), who claims to be the 13th apostle; and Serendipity (Salma Hayek), a muse-turned-stripper.

As you can tell, the film treats its religious material in Smith's typically irreverent fashion. And in the beginning — which includes a very funny bit about attempts to make the Catholic Church "hipper" — he manages to balance that with some insight.

But after the film's first third, the material peters out, and any cleverness is replaced with cheap, stupid humor, much of which comes from the mouth of the tiresome Mewes, who's at his worst here.

Smith is also in need of a good editor. At more than two hours, the film feels padded — there's a scene in a strip club and a Disney parody that serve no real purpose, and some other sequences run on far too long.

To his credit, the filmmaker has compiled quite a talented cast. Fiorentino is perfectly feisty and confused as Bethany, and it's good to see on-screen nice guys Affleck and Damon playing villains for a change.

The supporting performers nearly upstage them, though. Rickman provides much-needed humor in a handful of scenes, Rock's character actually has the most insightful moments, and even Smith garners a few laughs in a (mostly) non-speaking part.

"Dogma" is rated R for considerable profanity, violent carnage and gunplay, use of crude sexual slang terms and other questionable humor, gore, simulated drug use (marijuana), brief male nudity and some nude artwork, and use of racial epithets.

• What good is a message if no one understands it?

Someone probably needed to pose that question to director Luc Besson before he made "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc," a good-looking but vacant biography that manages to muddle the politics of the time period and call into question the state of mind of a revered historical figure.

Besson also directs the film in characteristically bombastic fashion — so much so that the violence resembles a cross between earlier filmed versions of the tale and "Braveheart" and with some strangely contemporary aspects as well.

And some of his casting choices are a bit suspect, particularly that of his ex-wife Milla Jovovich, who plays the title character as fervent and possibly deranged.