The Invention of Lying

2009 comedy

Rating: 9/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: In an alternate reality where lying doesn't exist, a guy stumbles upon the invention of untruthfulness. He tries to use it for financial gain, to advance his career, and to get a girlfriend; instead, he accidentally becomes a prophet and founds a religion.

If you're going to ask me to buy a preposterous premise like this, you at least need to keep things consistent. But the execution is frustratingly half-assed. You get something that feels half written with half-constructed characters and a half-realized theme. I could forgive all that if there was a single laugh to be had in this mess, but there isn't. By the time it gets to the parts that would make Bill Maher giggle like a tickled old man, actually the cleverest bits of the movie, I was more aggravated than anything else. Not much, if anything, succeeds in this glossy Hollywood comedy. I probably should have just watched the above poster instead. What's going on there? It looks like they photoshopped him to make his legs disproportional, but why would they do that to Ricky Gervais?

A sports talk radio guy told me that I should see this.