I love Ricky Gervais. I love The Office, I love Extras, I love his podcasts, and I love his stand-up comedy. But The Invention of Lying is the steamiest pile of shite I've seen in a very long time.
They say it's better to show rather than tell, so if you have to have a voiceover explain the premise of your movie before it even begins, you probably haven't chosen the best subject for a movie. And even forgiving the contrived premise, I found very little to like in the film at all.
It started slowly but I really wanted to give it a chance, so I overlooked the boring first 20 minutes hoping things would get better. Things got worse. There were very few jokes in the entire film and by the half-way mark it had turned into a mean-spirited religious parody. I'm an atheist but the film's mockery of religion felt cheap and unnecessary, and I find being hammered over the head with atheist doctrine as offensive as being hammered over the head with Christian doctrine.
I think it took around 25 minutes before Carmen and I decided to concentrate on picking out the myriad plot holes and ridiculous assertions in the film, which turned out to be far more enjoyable an experience than watching the movie itself.
For example:
- The entire second half of the movie hangs on the idea that Ricky Gervais decides to come up with some "previously unknown" yet incredibly dramatic revelations of events which occurred in the 14th century. We learn pretty early in the movie that Ricky Gervais's company has extensively researched every century in history for their documentaries, so why did no one spot instantly that he was talking bollocks?
- Humans haven't evolved the ability to lie, but why does that mean that everyone just blurts out whatever they're thinking? If I hated my job, I wouldn't necessarily have to say that to my boss the minute he walks into the office in the morning. (Presumably Tina Fey's character had been saying that every day, if that scene is to be believed. And if everyone has no trouble blurting out what they're thinking, why didn't Ricky Gervais's boss fire him immediately instead of delaying it?)
- Why does the inability to lie mean there is no such thing as creativity? Commercials in The Invention of Lying are boring and completely factual: a commercial for Coke consists of a company spokesman standing against a white background explaining that "nothing has changed, so please continue to buy Coke". Why? Does Coke's real-life slogan of "Enjoy" somehow qualify as a lie?
- You know the saying "if a butterfly flaps its wings in New York, it can cause a tsunami in Japan"? Apparently, the complete inability of humankind to lie has had surprisingly little effect on the world. It looks almost identical to how it does in real life, including the invention of the aforementioned Coca-Cola. Amazing coincidence, isn't it?
- Of course, the major difference between our world and that of the movie is its complete lack of any kind of religion. And yet, after Ricky Gervais single-handedly concocts religious doctrine of unlikely similarity to the real world's, their "Man in the Sky" church (developed completely from scratch and independant from the real world) looks exactly like a modern-day Christian church. Another mystifying coincidence.
Literally the only thing I enjoyed about the whole movie was a one-minute sequence featuring Stephen Merchant and Shaun Williamson. The rest was pretty much torture. After Ghost Town and The Invention of Lying, Gervais has two strikes to his name as a leading actor in Hollywood films. I hope he redeems himself as a movie-maker with Cemetary Junction, and I expect the involvement of Stephen Merchant will help somewhat in that regard, but now I must greet a movie I would normally be excited about with nervous uncertainty.
No stars.