I will have to admit that I hadn’t really heard of this film before it arrived on my doorstep. It has been my general experience since I began to do these reviews that when I normally haven’t heard of a film, there is a very good reason for that, namely, it is a bad film. While not completely awful, The Invention of Lying is another film that proves the general rule. And that is too bad as the premise for the film was actually rather promising.
Film
The Invention of Lying is based on a very simple premise, namely that the human race has not yet evolved to be able to tell a lie. In fact, there wasn’t even a word invented yet to describe untruthfulness. Yes the word lie hadn’t even been coined yet. Into this world stumbles, Mark (Ricky Gervais), a down on his luck screenwriter, who is fired from his job and is unable to pay his rent. He enters his bank to withdraw the last of his funds which are well short of what he needs for his rent. He is advised by the bank teller that the system is down and that he will have to wait.
It is then that he has an epiphany, and decides to inform the teller that he has more money in his account than he really does so he will have enough to pay the rent. He does and she believes him without even checking and gives him the money he requested. Mark now sees endless possibilities before him and is shocked that no one has thought of this ideas before. He then decides to lie his way through life, to make money, become rich and snag the girl of his dreams. However things begin to take a turn for the worst for him when he lies to his mother on her deathbed about what happens to you when you die.
Apparently, the accepted idea was that there was nothing after death. Mark went and created not only the concept of heaven as well as God, described as the man in the sky who controlled all of our lives. Yes, Mark lied and invented the concept of religion. This anti-religion sentiment is really at the core of the film. While this sounds like a great idea for a film on paper, the execution here is lacking.
The film is more like short SNL skit rather than a full length film as the initial creative spark behind the film is exhausted rather quickly, leaving a rather unfunny and ponderous mess in its wake. This is surprising given that the film was co-written by Ricky Gervais and has quite a cast featuring Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey. Rob Lowe and Jonah Hill as well as shorter cameos by a few other well known actors such and Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Jason Bateman just to name two. Despite the cast and my intrigue over the concept, I just can’t recommend this film. If you must, check it out but on the basis of a rental only.
Video
When I think of the look of this film, the word average keeps coming to mind. All aspects that I consider to rate the look of a film, black level, detail, shadow detail, imagine depth and clarity, color rendition and the like are all about average in comparison to most of the past years’ Blu-ray releases.
The film has a rather natural although a bit cool at times color palette with nice looking skin tones. However, the image throughout the film is characterized by a general softness and lack of fine facial and background details. As a result, the film lacks the sharpness and clarity of the best looking films on Blu-ray, looking a bit flat and two dimensional in comparison. The lack of detail and overall softness is consistent throughout the film and is likely the artistic intent of the director and not the fault of the encoding process. I can’t say that I detected any serious use of digital noise reduction or edge enhancement. I just would have preferred a sharper and more detailed image.
Audio
The audio was even more disappointing that the video. While the audio on this release is presented with Dolby True HD, I am not sure why they even bothered given the rather primitive sound design, which is basically a stereo mix. The sound field here is very front heavy, to the point that I had to get out of my seat to put my ear up to the surround speakers to make sure they were working. Every now and then one gets a faint hint of sound coming from the surrounds with almost all of the sound coming strictly from the front three speakers.
The overall fidelity of the sound is nice enough I guess as it is basically nothing more than a dialogue track. Dynamics are basically non existent. I would have preferred a bit more sophisticated sound design than that which was presented here, even considering the fact that the film is a comedy.
Special Features
I can’t really say that I enjoyed the extras on this release, which seemed to me to be nothing more than a tribute to the “genius” of Ricky Gervais. I know the guy is talented but geez….. The extras include several featurettes including an outtake and gag reel entitled “More Laughter: Corpsing and Outtakes” as well as a prequel to the film entitled “Prequel: The Dawn of Lying”.
Also featured is “A Truly ‘Honest’ Making of Featurette with Ricky Gervais” where the cast describe just how much of a genius Ricky Gervais really is. The extras also include the featurette Meet Karl Pilkington featuring Ricky Gervais’ friend and co-host of The Rickey Gervais Show as he travels to the US for the first time to do publicity for a film. Also included are Ricky and Matt’s Video Podcasts during the making of and publicity tour for the film as well as deleted scenes. The release is not BD-Live enabled but does include a digital copy of the film compatible with Macs and PCs.
Final Thoughts
Unfortunately, while there is a gem of idea behind this film, the execution is just not up to snuff. My ultimate recommendation would be for you to skip this baby in its entirely. If you must see it, do so on the basis of a rental only.
