Religulous

2008 inquiry

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Funnyman Bill Maher travels the world to have some of his questions about religion answered. Or maybe he's traveling on the world because he's a superior human being who was sent to earth by something (Note: Not a deity) to tell us all what's what in a very smug way.

Points deducted because my research shows that this contains possible misinformation. More points deducted because of the amount of stereotyping and generalizing that Maher does. Not to say this wasn't entertaining because it was. I enjoy when people are made fun of because of their beliefs. I really do. But there was just something about Maher's approach here that rubbed me the wrong way. Part of the problem is that his stated goal with this is so far from what he's trying to do. He claims he's asking these questions because he really wants answers, preaching the "Gospel of I-Don't-Know." He doesn't. He's asking these questions because it gives him the opportunity to be funny and show how much smarter he is than the average person. His well-written diatribe at the end of this, a biased faux-summary of his discoveries, could easily have been written prior to production. As a documentary, this lacks cohesion. I laughed out loud a few times, and if that was his main goal (he is, after all, a comedian), then he succeeded. Somehow, I doubt Bill Maher's main goal was to make Shane laugh, however. If nothing else, this reinforces my belief that I need to visit the Creation Museum. They have animatronic dinosaurs there!