STARTING OFF WITH A BANG: Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as Zack and Miri.

In Clerks, Kevin Smith’s first—and arguably only—great film, slacker emeritus Randall Graves drew some of the indie comedy’s biggest laughs by placing an order for porn videos—Cum on Eileen, Men Alone II: The KY Connection and Cum-Gargling Naked Sluts among them—in front of a mom and child. With the not-so-subtly titled Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Smith resurrects the same gag as his characters plan the perfect movie-based smut, considering such titles as Star Whores, Lawrence of a Labia and Kindergarten Cock. Only this time, Smith stretches the porn-title joke across an entire film. Strangely, the sophomoric repetition never gets old, even when Zack and Miri’s storyline does.

Smith’s biggest flaw as a writer (we’ll leave his weak direction alone) is that all his characters are loquacious and likable nerds with foul mouths. Be they vengeful angels, gay men, girlfriends, cops, even the precocious (read: lazily written) child of the dismal Jersey Girl, they all sound exactly the same. They all talk like Kevin Smith.

Which makes Zack and Miri a pleasant surprise. With the story of down-and-out roommates (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks) who make a skin flick to pay their heating bill, Smith offers some of his sharpest writing to date by sticking to dick and fart jokes, adding heart, and letting his cast let loose like Jenna Jameson at a gangbang. For once, individual personalities shine through the splooge.

This is a less self-indulgent Smith (though not a smarter one), departing from the View Askew universe of interconnected characters that won fans but polarized the uninitiated. Smith’s former productions were like low-rent precursors to Judd Apatow. In Zack and Miri both comic galaxies collide, with orgasmic results. Apatow regulars Rogen and the ever-luminescent Banks shine as the titular characters, while The Office’s Craig Robinson steals every scene as an embittered coffee-shop clerk doubling as the movie’s producer and breast-auditioner. (His obsession with making the all-anal extravaganza Star Whores: Revenge of the Shit is golden, as is the underrated actor.) Justin Long gets chuckles as a macho gay porn star, while Smith vets Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes (Jay to Smith’s Silent Bob, here playing second fiddle to his own scrotum) shine in small roles. Rounding out the cast are real porn stars Traci Lords—as an actress who can blow vaginal bubbles—and Katie Morgan, who explains (and demonstrates) anal sex as constipation relief.

Sound vulgar? Fuck yeah. But Zack and Miri is a tricky little bastard, a sweet-hearted chick flick covered in jizz that frequently hits comic G spots. You really can’t save Kevin Smith from Kevin Smith—the film is structurally unsound, the direction is shite, and the gee-whiz romanticism is John Hughes dragged through the Ace of Hearts. But Smith has a knack for dick jokes. Likewise, Rogen and Banks have a gift for delivering them. The charisma and filthy lunacy (like Clerks, Zack and Miri was initially slapped with an NC-17) make it easy to see past the discharge to Smith’s most consistently funny flick since his first. R.