The Invention of Lying - D+

Ricky Gervais must think everyone on Earth (except himself, of course) is an raging idiot. Every character in The Invention of Lying tells the truth all the time, no matter how brutal it might be. One day, after losing his job and getting evicted, Mark Bellison (Gervais - basically playing himself) starts telling lies to get more money. Then he lies to get another date with Jennifer Garner, then lies to get his friend out of a drunk driving charge (nice!). He does draw the line at lying to get women to have sex with him - which he must consider rape. He then turns the movie into a pro-atheist, anti-God, anti-Christian diatribe as misguided as it is simplistic . . .

It's unfortunate that Gervais categorizes all Christians as mindless, gullible dopes. If he hadn't, then this failed satire wouldn't have unravelled as soon as he brought his made-up beliefs to the public on the backs of a couple of Pizza Hut boxes (like Moses and the Ten Commandments). There is no one defending religion in the film, therefore no real drama or tension exists. Worse than that, Gervais isn't funny at all, just smarmy, and his attempts at self-deprecation grew stale years ago (however he does have a future hosting awards shows since he's an expert at ridiculing celebrities' sense of self-importance). The cameos (especially Jason Bateman, Edward Norton, Tina Fey, and Philip Seymour Hoffman) work well for the most part, but in the end we're stuck with a predictable relationship snoozefest where Garner will no doubt choose Gervais's inner goodness over Rob Lowe's outward godliness.

Gervais has been great on TV and the public's fawning over him must have led him to the conclusion that they're (you're) morons. I've never seen a film attack it's entire audience before, but by the end, it's Gervais who's insulting our intelligence, not vice versa. D+

Lawyer thought it was funnier than I did.