The Invention Of Lying

Directors: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson
Writers: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner
Release Date: October 2, 2009
Length: 1 hour, 39 minutes

Can you imagine a world where everyone tells the truth? Where no one can tell a white lie or make up anything at all? Does this world sound different and fascinating? Of course, it does. But unfortunately, this fascinating and interesting world does a bad job at translating to the screen. Mark Bellison is just another average citizen in this world that is overweight, has no girlfriend, and has just been fired from his job. Boo freaking Hoo, nobody cares. When Mark has no money left to pay for his rent (just another problem for us to sympathize over), he does something no one has ever thought of before. He alters the truth. Since nobody in this world knows what lying is, everyone believes everything Mark says. Therefore, as you can imagine, Mark gains power and wealth and popularity, when he makes up things about the after life. Jennifer Garner is cute as always, as Mark’s out of league love interest. The Invention of Lying has a great premise and an intriguing storyline, but it was wasted with a film that unfortunately seemed to be lacking effort when it came to the writing. After the first half hour of the film, I could tell I wasn’t going to like the rest of it. But, I really knew I couldn’t stand this film when there were random, unexpected cameos from celebrities like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton and Jason Bateman. Tina Fey, Jonah Hill and Rob Lowe also had small parts in the film, and most of the laughs from the audience were generated from those three and the cameos. It’s sad when using eye-grabbing celebrities is what a director depends on for the film, because the script isn’t funny enough. You may be wondering why I went to see this movie in the first place. I went into this movie knowing that other reviewers did not enjoy it, but I thought it would be at least a bad movie that I could enjoy because truth be told, everyone in their movie-going life has laughed through some horrible films. Oddly enough though, I found myself extremely bored throughout this useless movie. I love just about every member of the cast, including Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner, but you could just say that they all got bad luck with the script. I enjoyed Ricky Gervais’s film that came out a year ago, Ghost Town, and this film may seem like the same kind of thing, but unfortunately The Invention Of Lying is about 5 steps down from where Ghost Town stands in entertainment value. Don’t go waste your 12 bucks. Go see something better.