Having seen early reviews give a three out of four-star rating for “Zach and Miri Make a Porno” it appears the only explanations possible are either under-the-table money from the filmmaker or the film critics have a terribly low standard for comedy. Probably the latter.

    The storyline is about platonic live-in friends Zach (“Knocked-Up”’s Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) who are debt to point of living without electricity, water and heat, as well as being months behind on their rent and close to eviction.

    Their solution: make a porn movie. 

    In the course of making a movie (in which Zach and Miri have very un-porn-like sedate sex), the couple figures out what went over their heads in all the long years of their friendship … that they are in love with each other.
 
   Normally it is not a good thing for a critic to reveal too terribly much about the specifics of a movie. However there is nothing to spoil here, the quality of the comedy already does that; only those with low standards for pulling out laughs will find anything remotely redeeming in this film.

    Screenwriter and director Kevin Smith has created a story that reflects the travails of his early years as a struggling independent filmmaker. He has added the raunchy quest for an amateur porn product, and even enlisted ex-underage skin flick star Traci Lords and current adult film actress (the term used loosely here) Katie Morgan, in addition to former “Clerks” and “Clerks II” alumni Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes.
 
   For all the under-XXX-level explicit sex (originally rated NC-17, somehow Smith’s appeal got the Motion Picture Association of America to lower it to an R-rating), nudity and obscene dialogue, the movie doesn’t manage to rise above cheap and filthy comedy. The most amusing scene – and only mildly so – involve Zach witnessing a gay porn star and his lover in a spat (at a high school reunion, no less). Otherwise, the sex and bathroom humor is most weak.
 
   Oh yeah, and the love story that develops between Zach and Miri. Billed as “touching” and “romantic,” the actors lack the requisite credible sexual chemistry, making it a pretty shallow romantic comedy involving two airheads with no dignity. Only better screenwriting and perhaps different casting would have rescued the romance theme.

    Some independent filmmakers who have experienced some previous success often get a few free early passes from critics. While Smith did indeed beat the odds with “Clerks,” “Chasing Amy” and “Clerks II,” those efforts involved better writing and contrast Zach and Miri into the blander lower standards of comedy.

    Don’t be fooled by the more than $10 million Zach and Miri pulled in during the week of its week first showing, making it the No. 2 grossing movie behind “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” There are many young adults in this country with a lot of time on their hands and the money to spend on a raunchy sophomoric movie.
 
   Nor did it hurt Smith the Weinstein Company picked up the film, moving it out for wide distribution. A movie made for only $24 million, Weinstein knows a commercial success when the company sees it. And for most movie profiteers, the bottom line is about the commercial success, with the critical appeal being less than secondary.