Review:
First off, if you haven't seen the movie, there will be spoilers here. The first spoiler is that the movie is not very cohesive and so any spoilers aren't not that big a deal -- so read on in comfort.
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Like I said, it's not cohesive. The film seems like they made three different versions, and rather than choosing one to go with they just used the beginning from one, the middle from another, and the ending from the third. It feels like a pulp romantic comedy, with one premise/storyline is interpreted by three different writers/directors.
This isn't the case, however, so it just turns out to be a movie that doesn't know where it wants to go. They also have trouble with things that don't make sense -- like changing definitions of what 'lying" is, and Jennifer Garner's inexplicable obsession with eugenics.
Criticism aside, there is one aspect that is relevant to this forum (I call it "The Middle Movie") in which Gervais' character thinks up the world's first "where you go when you die" lie to comfort his mother on her deathbed. This is overheard by some nurses, and becomes the worlds first religion. The statement, of course, is that in a world without lying everyone is a default atheist.
This is followed by the hilarious scene where he's digging in deeper, trying to explain "The Man in the Sky" and it's full of great lines like, (beware, this is from memory
For more on Ricky Gervais' atheism:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/01/22/ricky-gervais-discusses-his-atheism-with-james-lipton/
First off, if you haven't seen the movie, there will be spoilers here. The first spoiler is that the movie is not very cohesive and so any spoilers aren't not that big a deal -- so read on in comfort.
------------------------------------------------------------
Like I said, it's not cohesive. The film seems like they made three different versions, and rather than choosing one to go with they just used the beginning from one, the middle from another, and the ending from the third. It feels like a pulp romantic comedy, with one premise/storyline is interpreted by three different writers/directors.
This isn't the case, however, so it just turns out to be a movie that doesn't know where it wants to go. They also have trouble with things that don't make sense -- like changing definitions of what 'lying" is, and Jennifer Garner's inexplicable obsession with eugenics.
Criticism aside, there is one aspect that is relevant to this forum (I call it "The Middle Movie") in which Gervais' character thinks up the world's first "where you go when you die" lie to comfort his mother on her deathbed. This is overheard by some nurses, and becomes the worlds first religion. The statement, of course, is that in a world without lying everyone is a default atheist.
This is followed by the hilarious scene where he's digging in deeper, trying to explain "The Man in the Sky" and it's full of great lines like, (beware, this is from memory
And this goes on for some time, is extremely funny and horribly offensive to religious people... and it's the only reason to watch the movie. In fact, it seems to me by the way the rest of the movie is constructed that the religion gag was whole point of making the movie in the first place -- the rest is just filler.
For more on Ricky Gervais' atheism:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/01/22/ricky-gervais-discusses-his-atheism-with-james-lipton/