A great movie… honestly

Movie review

The Invention
Of Lying
DIRECTED BY: Ricky
Gervais, Matthew
Robinson
STARRING: Ricky
Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Jonah Hill
CERT: 15A

It is not bad enough that I’ve just lost another 100 minutes of my short life watching yet another comedy that isn’t. I now have to waste valuable time and brain cells trying to write about the bloody thing.
It makes my head hurt so bad, I fear that at any moment, blood will come gushing out my eyes. Or I will simply crack up and go running naked down the street, screaming “Goats! Kettles! Aaaah!”
I’m just being honest. Like the people in this movie, who live in a world very much like our own, except they tell the truth about all things, at all times. Mostly this means they are very mean to each other but hey, the truth is ugly. And telling anything other than the whole truth is unheard of.
Until Mark Bellison (Gervais) changes the rules. Mark is a very bad screenwriter – perhaps no great sin in a world where art is non-existent, where telling tall tales is impossible, and so stories are simply factual retellings of history. Mark’s latest script is about the Black Plague, but his boss (Jeffrey Tambor) is not impressed.
So he gets the sack and is about to be evicted. Withdrawing the last of his cash from the bank, Mark has some kind of dramatic squiggly brain moment, and tell the first lie in history. Naturally he gets away with it – why would he not? And so he discovers great power.
Mostly he uses it to become very wealthy and widely admired, as you would. And now that he is no longer a loser, he finds himself in the same league as the lovely Anna (Garner), with whom he is besotted. But she wants something more than money. And as she is fond of saying, being short and fat with an ugly nose is not it.
Ah yes, and so it goes. Until Mark rushes to the nursing home – or as the sign outside says, the Sad Place For Hopeless Old People. His mother (Foinnula Flanagan) is dying, and distressed at the thought of the eternity of nothingness that awaits. Desperate to comfort her, Mark tells her she will in fact be going to a wonderful place, where all of her friends are waiting, and where everyone gets their own mansion.
At which point the film briefly becomes The Invention Of Religion – the not-so-subtle point being that religion is the biggest lie of them all, nothing much more than a crutch of consolation.
Word gets out that Mark has some secret info on life after death, and soon the world and his dog are camped on his lawn, looking for answers. And so he invents the notion of a man in the sky who controls everything, and who says that everyone do good things. Do too many bad things and you don’t get a mansion – three strikes and you’re out.
Sensing that this is a profound moment in history, Mark writes these commands on the back of two pizza boxes – there being no tablets of stone lying handy around the place.
It’s one of the few genuinely funny moments in a film that had all kinds of potential. But Gervais and fellow writer/director Matthew Robinson mostly squander what was a good idea – ignoring any number of gags that present themselves, missing most of the ones they go for, stretching the jokes that work (in a lazy step too far, Gervais also becomes Jesus) and ultimately settling for a lame romantic comedy. As if there aren’t enough of those.
The cast do what they can with it. I’m not a Gervais fan but he’s in likeable form here, and Jennifer Garner is a fine leading lady even if her acting chops are hardly stretched. The long list of cameo players are worth watching too – Jonah Hill, Christopher Guest, Tina Fey and Jason Bateman all turning up at various points, while Rob Lowe fills what almost amounts to a supporting role, wearing his slimy villain hat to play the leading man’s love rival.
But it’s still mostly rubbish.

Toy Story 3D
DIRECTED BY: John
Lasseter
VOICES: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, John Ratzenberger
CERT: G

Pixar changed the world with Toy Story in 1995 – doing for animation what The Beatles did for music.
They’ve gone on to other great things since then. Their latest, Up, is out this week and by all accounts is another fine addition to the canon. And there’s more to look forward to – the third Toy Story instalment is due out next year. In advance of that, they’ve dusted down the original, and jazzed it up.
The story of Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the rest of the toys in Andy’s room is one of cinema’s finest – and can stand proud alongside the most celebrated of timeless classics.
But I’ll leave it to yourself to decide if it’s worth bringing out the clan to see a film you’ve probably all seen a squillion times before, especially since the 3D trickery is nothing particularly special.
That almost seems like blasphemy but a reheated movie classic is in the same neighbourhood as a band who reforms for a reunion tour. No matter how great the gig, you still know your pocket is being picked.